Charles Wesley Ervin, Tomorrow Is Ours: The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon 1935-48, Colombo: Social Scientists' Association, 2006.

Tomorrow is Ours
The Trotskyist Movement in

India and Ceylon 1935-48
Charles Wesley Ervin
Social Scientists' Association
2006
Charles Wesley Ervin 2006
ISBN 955-9102-83-4
Published by
Social Scientists' Association
No. 12, Sulaiman Terrace
Colombo 05, Sri Lanka.
Printed by
Karunaratne & Sons Ltd
67, UDA Industrial Estate
Katuwana Road,
Homagama, Sri Lanka.
Contents
Preface ............................................................................................ .
Introduction by Hector Abhayavardhana ............ .......... ...................
VB
List of Illustrations ..................... ........ ...... ............... ........................
XB
1.
.Background ............................................................................
2.
The Pioneers ............................................................................ 48
3.
The Formation of an Indo-Ceylonese Party........................ 94
4.
The Quit India Revolt ............................................................ 113
5.
The Interlude ......................................................................... 131
6.
Rifts in the Party .................................................................... 154
7.
Ballots, Barricades, and Bloodshed ...................................... 173
8.
A Race Against Time .............................................................. 192
9.
The Breakthrough .................................................................. 208
10. Independence .......................................................................... 218

11. Demise and Regeneration ...................................................... 232
Appendix A: Biographical Notes ................................................... 250

Appendix B: Program of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of
India (1942) .................................................................................... 278
Bibliography ................................................................................... 335
Index ............................................................................................... 356
Preface
Many books of this genre grow out of a PhD thesis. In this case that is
only half tme. My interest in the Trotskyist movements of India and
Ceylon did begin while I was a graduate student at the University of
Chicago in the early 1970s. But I was studying Indian art history, not
political science. My involvement with Trotskyism was purely extracurricular. For a while I pursued both with equal passion. But the extracurricular got the upper hand. I ended up abandoning my academic career. Yet I never lost interest in my "Indian Trotskyism project." It remained a hobby that I pursued, on and off, as circumstances permitted,
for the last thirty years. This book is the result.
In 1935 a group of bright young Ceylonese socialists, led by the
firebrand Trotskyist, Philip Gunawardena, launched the Lanka Sama
Samaja Party (LSSP). The young radicals rattled the British colonial
government and complacent Ceylonese plantocracy with their populist
message of freedom and equality. The LSSP grew rapidly. Yet the
Ceylonese Trotskyists, following the doctrine of their hero, didn't think
that socialism could be built in one country, certainly not a little island
with hardly any industry. In their view India was where the British Raj
would be defeated. The LSSP formed fraternal links with the Congress
Socialist Party and sent delegations to the annual sessions of the Indian
National Congress. It was through these connections that they met likeminded socialists in India. When WWIl started, the Ceylonese government clobbered the LSSP for its anti-war propaganda. Many cadres, including four leaders, were jailed. The LSSP was forced underground.
In early 1942 the party rescued their imprisoned leaders in a daring jailbreak that became legendary. With the police hot on their trail, many of
the Ceylonese Trotskyists escaped to India, where they joined with
their Indian co-thinkers to form the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India
and Ceylon (BLPI).
The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
That pretty much summarizes what I had been able to discover

from the sources available to me in the early 'seventies. I I wanted to
know more. Who were these Indian Trotskyists? And what became of
this ambitious venture to form an Indo-Ceylonese party?
In 1973 I went -to India for a year to complete my PhD research.
Shortly after I arrived, I made a bee line to one of the veteran
Trotskyists in Bombay. He had joined the first Trotskyist group in the
late 'thirties and remained faithful to the cause for the next four decades. As I sat scribbling notes, he recounted the history of the movement from the very beginning. It was fascinating. He gave me names
and addresses of others to interview. I now had a trail to follow.
As I travelled all over India, visiting the art museums and photographing old monuments, I looked up more "old timers" in my spare
time. Each interview gave me more pieces of the puzzle. I discovered
that in the turbulent years after WWII the Trotskyists made impressive
headway on the labor front in several areas. In Madras the Trotskyists
captured the largest and oldest union in India, and in 1947 led a huge
lOO-day strike, much to the chagrin of the Communist Party. I felt that I
was uncovering a buried chapter in history that deserved to be documented.
In 1988 I wrote the first part of what I hoped would be a three-part
article on Indian Trotskyism for the Britishjoumal, Revolutionary History. 2 In that article I covered the origins of the Indian Trotskyist
groups in the late 'thrities and the struggle of the BLPI during WWII.
At that point the most informative source was Leslie Goonewardene, A Short History of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Colombo, 1960). The section on the BLPI
consists of only a few paragraphs. The American academic, George Jan Lerski,
published an in-depth study of the LSSP in 196&. George Jan Lerski, Origins of
Trotskyism in Ceylon (Stanford, 196&). However, he took the history only up to the
onset ofWWIl.
Charles Wesley Ervin, "Trotskyism in India: Origins through World War II (193545)," Revolutionary History, vol. 1, no. 4 (Winter 19&&-&9), pp. 22-34; translated
and reprinted as "Le trotskysme en Inde pendant la guerre," Cahiers Leon Trotsky,
no. 39 (September 19&9), pp. 77-111.
11
However, before I could produce the next installment, new sources of

documentary information suddenly opened.
In 1991 the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the US section of the
Fourth International from the start, donated its vast collection of
Trotskyist literature to the Hoover Archives at Stanford University. 3
Those archives contain the single largest collection of Indian and
Ceylonese Trotskyist documents in the world. Energized by all this new
material, I wrote my second installment on Indian Trotskyism for Revolutionary History in 1997. 4 In that article I concentrated on the activities of the BLPI in the crucial postwar period, from 1945 to 1948.
In England another treasure trove was unlocked in the 'nineties.
Thanks to the Public Records Act, the government had to finally de-
The SWP had been the official American section ofTrotsky's international movement since 1929, when its founding leaders were expelled from the Communist
Party. In the 'thirties the American party played a key role in helping Trotsky, who
was then in exile, cohere his followers, scattered all over the world, into the International Left Opposition, which in 1938 became the Fourth International. On the
eve of WWII, the SWP established mail contact with the LSSP and Trotskyists in
India. Once the war started, however, the mail was no longer reliable. The SWP
secretly started a very risky operation to re-establish contact with the Trotskyist
groups that had been forced underground throughout Europe and Asia. The SWP
had its sailor members sign up for supply ships sailing to Asia. Setting ashore in
Colombo or Calcutta, they would contact the underground Trotskyist groups, exchange letters and literature, and carry the contraband back to the US, where it was
sent to SWP headquarters in New York City. As a result.ofthese heroic operations,
the SWP amassed an archive of old Trotskyist newspapers, leaflets, internal bulletins, and other party documents available nowhere else. Unfortunately, the SWP
kept these archives private. In the 1960s the SWP began to veer away from its
Trotskyist heritage and in the 1980s openly repudiated Trotskyism. In 1991 the
SWP literally jettisoned its past. It deposited its international files in the Hoover
Archives and the domestic records in the Wisconsin Historical Society. The SWP
archives at Hoover are divided into two collections, the Socialist Workers Party
Records and the Library of Social History Collection. I abbreviate these in the footnotes as SWP Papers and LSH, respectively. In addition: a number of SWP leaders
deposited their own archives at Hoover.
Charles Wesley Ervin, "Trotskyism in India, 1942-48," in Al Richardson (ed.),
Blows Against the Empire: Trotskyism in Ceylon (London, 1997), pp. 218-241.
iii
classify some of the official documents from the era of the Raj that had
been kept under wraps in the India Office Library, including the Indian
Political Intelligence Service files, which alone fill more than 700
boxes. 5 I made five trips to London, over a period of several years, to
mine those records, which yielded precious nuggets of information.
Given all this new material, I realized that I had to scale back my
ambitious plan to write a book documenting the history of Indian
Trotskyism from its origins to the present. I decided to limit this book
to the colonial period. The year 1948 is an appropriate end point for
two reasons. First, by 1948 both India and Ceylon had become independent. Second, the BLPI entered the Socialist Party of India in that
year. This was an exercise in what Trotskyists call "entryism"-to
merge into a sympathetic left party, build up a Trotskyist left wing, and
exit stronger than before.
By the time the Trotskyist movement got going in India, the Congress had been in existence for fifty years. Gandhi had already led two
tumultuous mass movements. The sun was setting on the Raj. Stalin
had become a Red dictator. A defeated but undaunted Trotsky formed
the Fourth International. Europe had been through the Great War, the
Depression, the victory of fascism in Italy and Germany, and the Spanish Civil War. There is no way a book like this can provide all that
background. However, I thought some kind of introduction would be
useful. The first chapter attempts to briefly summarize how the British
conquered and transformed India, how the Indian nationalists responded, and how the Marxists ahalyzed and intervened in that long,
complex, and fascinating process.
The IPI archives consists of surveillance reports and intercepts from MI6, MI5,
and the Special Branch, as well as a large number of intelligence summaries and
position papers. The collection consists of more than 57,800 pages in 767 files. For
brevity in citations I refer to the Oriental and India Office Collections in the India
Office Library as IOL. The files of Indian Political Intelligence (lPI) are part of the
Public and Judicial Department (Separate) Files, 1913-1947. Following the convention used at the IOL, I abbreviate these files as LlPJ.
iv
I have provided brief biographical sketches of the leading

Trotskyists in an appendix. Whenever a name in the text appears in
bold type, that signifies that there is an entry in the appendix.
Many people have contributed to this book. First and foremost, I
must express my debt to Hector Abhayavardhana in Sri Lanka, one of
the very few surviving links to the pre-war LSSP and BLPI. He has
been a source of invaluable information over the years and was my
guide and gracious host during my last visit to Sri Lanka in 1997.
I also must give special mention to Kumari Jayawardena, the secretary of the Social Scientists' Association in Sri Lanka, who has encouraged me to see this project through to publication. She has produced
pioneering studies of the origins of the left and labor movements in
Ceylon. I thank the staff at the SSA, particularly Rasika Chandrasekera,
for their careful preparation of this manuscript for printing and to
Prarthana Gama Arachchi for meticulous editing.
I thank all those veterans who gave me oral histories, old party
documents, and answered my many letters over the last three decades:
S. Amamath, S.C.C. Anthony Pillai, K. Appanraj, Sailen Banerji, Jagu
Belani, Keshav Bhattacharyya, Tulsi Boda, Dulal Bose, Sudarshan
Chatterji, Sitanshu Das, Lionel Dissanayake, Trevor Drieberg,
Amaradasa Femando, Meryl Femando, Leslie Goonewardene, Osmund
Jayaratne, Jagadish Jha, V. Karalasingham, Ramesh Karkal, Sitaram
Kolpe, Minoo Masani, Hiranand Mishra, Basanta Dev Mukherji,
Murlidhar Parija, Selina Perera, Senadhira Piyasena, Vinayak Purohit,
S.R. Rao, T.R. Rao, Ajit and Annie Roy, Karuna Kant Roy, Purnangshu
K. Roy, Edmund Samarakkody, Indra Sen, Onkarnath Shastri,
Chandravadan Shukla, Tara Shukla, Mahendra Singh, N. Sivasambu,
Regi Siriwardena, S.P. Udyawar, and Michael van der Poorten (aka
Mike Banda).
Several key leaders who figure prominently in these pages had already died by the time I started my research. I gratefully acknowledge
the help I received from their families, in particular Dinesh, Lakmali,
and Prasanna Gunawardena (children of Philip Gunawardena); Rupa
Gunawardena (wife of Robert Gunawardena); and Gina Ismene Chitty
(daughter of Doric de Souza).
v
I also acknowledge the input of prominent Trotskyists in other

countries, including former leaders of the Fourth International, who
had various connections with the Indian and Ceylonese parties: Marcel
Bleibtreu, Pierre Brou<~, Ted Grant, Livio Maitan, Stanley Plastrik,
John Archer, Charlie Van Gelderen, Baruch Hirson, and Harry Ratner.
Ted Crawford and the late Al Richardson, editors of Revolutionary History in London, have been supportive in many ways over the years.
I thank the professional staff at the Hoover Archives, the India Office Library, the British Museum Newspaper Room, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the University of Chicago Library, the
Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, the Indian National
Archives in New Delhi, the Glasgow University Library, the Karl Marx
Memorial Library in London, the Tamiment Library at New York University, the New York Public Library, the Maniben Kara Institute in
Bombay, and the Archives ofIndian Labour in Noida, India.
I thank Wellred Publications in London for permission to reproduce quotes from the published writings of Leon Trotsky.
Last but not least, I want to express my gratitude to my wife,
Wendy, who patiently allowed me to pursue this labor of love.
Charles Wesley Ervin
2006
Introduction
Hector Abhayavardhana
In 1935 a group of young radicals formed the Lanka Sama Samaja
Party in colonial Ceylon. Unlike in neighboring India, a mass nationalist movement had never developed on our island, which was a relatively privileged Crown Colony. The Ceylonese elite supplicated the
local Governor and Colonial Office in London for concessional doses
of administrative responsibility. The LSSP defiantly called for a popular uprising to drive out the British and usher in sama samaj - an "equal
society." The party had passionate, powerful orators, like Philip
Gunawardena and N.M. Perera, who galvanized the crowds that
flocked to LSSP meetings. Less than a year after the party was formed,
Gunawardena and Perera were elected to the State Council. That was
the breakthrough. They used the chamber to publicize their politics, denounce injustice, and propose reforms which even their opponents
were often hard put to oppose. All this was new and for me, a student
just awakening to politics, very exciting. I joined the LSSP in 1939.
In its public pronouncements the LSSP tended to avoid divisive
doctrinal issues, such as the "Stalin-Trotsky conflict." However, I soon
became aware that some of our party leaders, notably Phi lip
Gunawardena, sided with Trotsky. The controversy within the LSSP intensified when a crop of young students returned from their studies in
Britain, having been recruited to the Trotskyist cause there. I got a copy
of Trotsky's book, The Revolution Betrayed, and,that completed my
conversion. In that masterpiece, Trotsky explained Why and how Stalin
had been able to consolidate his dictatorial regime' in the USSR.
Trotsky nevertheless continued to regard the USSR as a "workers
state," despite its reactionary bureaucratic deformations. He called
upon the Soviet workers to sweep away the Stalinist incubus and restore "workers democracy" in the form of revitalized Soviets. Trotsky
warned that unless the Stalin regime was thus removed, the USSR
would eventually be destroyed, either through external intervention or
through internal collapse. And that is exactly what happened in 1990-91.
VII
Shortly after I joined the LSSP, Stalin signed his infamous pact
with Nazi Germany. That was a bombshell. The differences in the party
could no longer be contained. The Trotskyist majority in the LSSP Executive Committee expelled the pro-Stalin faction and for the first time
openly proclaimed solidarity with the Fourth International, which
Trotsky had formed in 1938 as an alternative to Stalin's Third International. Up to that point the LSSP had no direct contact with Trotsky,
who was living precariously in Mexico. Stalin had already murdered
his son in Paris. One of our comrades, Selina Perera, was sent to England to establish contact with the British Trotskyists. She proceeded to
New York and met the leaders of the American section of the Fourth
International. She tried to enter Mexico to visit Trotsky but was
stopped at the border. That was our last chance. Stalin sent a henchman
to murder Trotsky less than a year later. And so, the LSSP never had
the opportunity to collaborate with Trotsky himself. We got our
Trotskyism from books, in isolation.
Those books, however, were powerful. The Permanent Revolution,
first published in English translation in 1930, laid out his program for
revolution in colonial countries like Ceylon and India. Trotsky posited
that the national bourgeoisie lacked the strength and fortitude to drive
out the imperial power and carry through the tasks associated with a
classic "bourgeois democratic revolution." In his view, only the urban
workers, supported by the multitudes of rural poor, could wage such a
fight, and in so doing they would have to go beyond purely democratic
reforms and encroach upon capitalist interests. In contrast, Stalin insisted that the Communist Parties support and bolster the so-called
"anti-imperialist" bourgeoisie. For us in the LSSP, that was absurd. Our
native elite was so conservative that many opposed the introduction of
universal suffrage in 1931!
Prior to his death, Trotsky predicted that the coming world war
would be the mother of revolution. That idea became our lodestar in
the LSSP. Our leaders articulated the view that the showdown with
British imperialism would take place on the mainland. However, without a revolutionary leadership, the battle would be lost. Therefore,
since there was no mass revolutionary party in India, we concluded that
viii
it was our duty to help build such a party in order to intervene in the
mass struggles that were sure to come. The LSSP already had connections with important Congress Socialists in Bombay and other cities.
Moreover, our leaders also had established contact with small groups
of Indian Trotskyists.
And so in 1940, the LSSP started sending cadres up to India. The
plan was to establish a beachhead of sorts in Madura and Madras, as
they were then called. Our leaders had a theory for this, too. In Ceylon
the urban working class was tiny, compared to India, and retained rural
ties. The true "proletariat" was the Tamil tea plantation workers in the
hill country. The LSSP had started to make inroads on several plantations and led a wave of militant strikes in 1939, causing the British
plantocracy to scream for the suppression of the Trotskyist troublemakers. Just across the Palk Straits were many millions of Tamils. So the
LSSP saw the Tamils as a human bridge, if you will, linking Ceylon
and India. The fuse could be lit at either end. Our salvation would be
the masses of Indian workers and poor peasants, especially the Tamils.
Those were the days when the LSSP was proud to be called a "proIndian" party.
In 1942 the Ceylonese organizers working in India succeeded in
unifying the scattered Indian Trotskyist groups into the Bolshevik
Leninist Party of India (BLPI). In Ceylon the LSSP had been driven
underground. The island had become an armed camp. A British admiral
was installed with virtually unlimited powers over the local scene.
Kandy became the staff headquarters of the British South-East-AsiaCommand. When the Japanese staged air raids over Colombo and
Trincomalee, the LSSP decided that the time had come to rescue the
senior LSSP leaders who had been jailed in Kandy since 1940 for opposing the war. That began the clandestine exodus of our cadres to the
mainland. I made my way to Bombay with a dozen or so other comrades. Little did I know at the time tha my sojourn in India would last
for two decades.
Looking back, some have dismissed the formation of the BLPI as
hopelessly idealistic. That is debatable. My own view, which I have
IX
expressed before, is that this venture represented perhaps one of the

most significant episodes in the modern political history of Sri Lanka.
On our own, the people of Sri Lanka were unable to generate a mass
movement for national freedom despite nearly 150 years of direct British rule. The British occupation was preceded by nearly three centuries
of Portuguese and Dutch rule over large parts of the island. Yet we were
unable to replicate the experience of popular struggle against colonial
domination that established a pantheon of national heroes and heroines,
as in India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The absence of a national movement opened the way for the advancement of partial aims and fostered
social divisions based on caste and ethnicity, with all their malignant
consequences.
I must add that the British authorities regarded our small party as a
potential threat. What bothered them most was precisely the internationalist aspect of the Trotskyist program. After my arrest in Bombay
in 1943, one of my interrogators, a British Commissioner of Police,
frankly appraised the danger they feared from our direction. He said:
"You represent the most dangerous contagion that has been brought
into this country. Whether in jail or outside we will not allow you to
infect the educated youth. We shall see to it that you are effectively
isolated." That they did. The government repeatedly smashed the BLPI
branches in India during the war. We had to start over, again and again.
As a result, when mass protests erupted after the war, just as Trotsky
had predicted, we were not strong enough, not rooted enough, to seize
the leadership. We seethed in frustration as the Communist Party of India actively collaborated with the Congress and Muslim League to defuse the situation.
Trotsky once said that no revolutionary crisis lasts long. If not
plucked, the ripe fruit will rot. That's what happened in India in 1947.
By the time the BLPI got on its feet, especially irl Bengal and Madras
Provinces, the tide had already turned. We had to helplessly witness
the horrible Hindu-Muslim riots in Bengal and the massacres in Punjab
that accompanied Partition. The war didn't beget the revolution we anticipated. Most of the Ceylonese cadres returned home. The LSSP tacitly abandoned the thesis of the subcontinental revolution. A few of us
remained in India. The BLPI, after much internal debate, decided to

join the Socialist Party in 1948 with the perspective of building up a
strong left wing in that party and eventually exiting to re-form the BLPI
stronger than before. Thus began the next phase of the Trotskyist movement in India.
Some ten years ago I received a letter from the author of this book,
seeking my help in what he described as a personal research project in
Indian Trotskyism. I replied to him with a challenge: "I respect your
wish to write a historical account of the Trotskyist episode in Indian
revolutionary history. This will have to be against the background of
more than fifty years in India that scintillate with fabulous accounts of
bold thinking, fearless confrontation with the imperial state, and incredible inventiveness of strategy and tactics in the quest of popular
unity in a society teeming with all manner of divisiveness."
I am delighted with the result of his work. Charles Wesley Ervin
has produced a meticulously researched monograph, written in lucid
pose, free of all that obscure jargon that disfigures so many academic
books these days. He discusses the debates within the party over each
new challenge that we had to face- our policy on the war, the question of Muslim self-determination, our attitude towards the Constituent
Assembly, and the meaning of the independence that was promised in
1947. But this is not just a history of ideas. The author shows how difficult it is to build a revolutionary Marxist party that can put its program into effective practice in a country like India. Today we hear a lot
about the "death of communism" and everlasting life of individualism,
consumerism, and liberal democracy. It is not Marxism or Socialism
that has died. It is Stalinism. I hope this book contributes to the renewed interest in the ideas of Leon Trotsky.
Hector Abhayawardhana
Colombo
May 2006
Illustrations
Phi lip Gunawardena with brothers Harry and Robert, Colombo, circa
1920
Murray Gow Purdy with African trade unionists, Johannesburg, 1934
Samaj, the first Trotskyist newspaper in India, 1937
Philip and Kusuma Gunawardena, Colombo, 1939

Caroline Anthony Pillai (nee Gunawardena) Colombo, circa 1940
Philip Gunawardena, Colvin de Silva, N.M. Perera, and Edmund
Samarakkody, Kandy prison, circa 1940 - 42
Ajit Roy, London, circa 1944 - 45
.RIN ratings demonstrate in Bombay, 1946
V.S.S. Sastry, London, 1945
Colvin de Silva, Paris, 1946
Ajit Roy, Bombay, 1947
S.C.C. Anthony Pillai, Colombo or Madras, circa 1945
Anant Mandekar, Bombay, 1947
Murray Gow Purdy, Bombay or London, 1947
Philip Gunawardena and members of the LSSP, Colombo, 1947
Colvin de Silva, Colombo, circa 1950
Bemard Soysa, Colombo, circa 1950
Robert Gunawardena, Colombo, circa 1950
Selina Perera, Colombo or Calcutta, circa 1950
xii
Unification conference of the LSSP and BSP, Colombo, 1950

Doric and Violet de Souza, Colombo, 1953
V. Karalasingham, Colombo, circa 1975
Leslie Goonewardene, Colombo, circa 1980
V. Balasubramaniam P.V. Durairaj, and Siddhaman, Madurai, 1991

B.M.K. Ramaswamy, Madras, 1991
The Gunawardena brothers: Harry (left), Robert (center), and Philip

(right), circa 1920.
Photo: AIjuna, Pilip Gunavardhana caritaya (1969).
Murray Gow Purdy (right) with Z. Mugade, organizer for the Laundry
Workers Union, Johannesburg, 1934.
Photo: Baruch Hirson, London.
Murray Gow Purdy (holding hat) with comrades of the Native Laundry
Workers Union, Johannesburg, 1934.
Photo: Baruch Hirson, London.
Regd. No. A 31140
.1........:.
~ ~1IAf'lil~
"...,(I&T
....
:
'I)
!II):
111).
11
)11:
Samaj, the first Trotskyist newspaper in India, 1937.

Copy: Onkarnath Shastri, Allahabad
Philip and Kusuma Gunawardena,

1939.
Photo: Arjuna, Pilip Gunavardhana
caritaya (1969).
Caroline Anthony Pillai, circa 1940.

Photo: K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan:
Thoyizh Sangha Medai S.c.c.
Antoni Pillai Vazhkai Varalaru
(1995).
LSSP leaders in prison at Kandy (left to right): Philip Gunawardena,

Colvin de Silva, N.M. Perera, and Edmund Samarakkody, circa 1940-42
Photo: Arjuna, Pilip Gunavardhana caritaya (1969).
Ajit Roy speaking in Hyde Park, London, circa 1944-45.

Photo: Ted Grant, London.
RIN ratings demonstrate in Bombay, 1946.

Photo: Times of India, 20 February 1946.
V.S.S. Sastry (left) with RCP comrades during Neath Bye-Election campaign,
London, 1945.
Colvin de Silva (standing) speaking at meeting of the Fourth International,

Paris, 1946. Seated to his immediate left are Jock Haston and Pierre Frank.
s.c.c. Anthony Pillai, circa 1945.

Ajit Roy in Bombay, 1947.
Photo: New Spark, 25 October 1947.
Anant Mandekar, BLPI candidate

for Bombay Municipal
Corporation, Bombay, 1947.
Photo: New Spark, 24 May 1947.
Photo: K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan:

Thoyizh Sangha Medai
S. C. C. Antoni Pillai Vazhkai
Varalaru (1995).
Murray Gow Purdy, after release from

prison in Bombay, circa December 1947.
Photo: Socialist [Bombay], 25 April 1948.
Philip Gunawardena (center, holding newspaper) with comrades of the LSSP,

Colombo, 1947. Standing next to Philip are Assaf Fernando (left) and
GP. Perera (right), nicknamed "Elephant" Perera, since he started his tradeunion career working in the factory that made the Elephant brand cigarettes
Photo: Arjuna, Pilip Gunavardhana caritaya (1969).
Colvin R. de Silva, Colombo, circa 1950.

Photo: Colvin de Silva, Left-Disunity: A Reply to a Critic, (1950).
il"
Bernard Soysa, circa 1950.

'Photo: Samasamajist, 1950.
Robert Gunawardena, circa 1950.

Photo: Samasamajist, 1950.
Selina Perera, circa 1950.

Photo: Samasamajist, 1950.
N.M. Perera addressing LSSP-BSP Unification Conference, Colombo, 1950.

Photo: Personal collection of C.W. Ervin.
Doric and Violet de Souza, passport photos, 1953.

Photo: personal collection of Gina Ismene Chitty (nee de Souza).
V. Karalasingham, circa 1975

Photo: V. Karalasingham, The Way Out/or the Tamil Speaking People (1977).
Leslie Goonewardene, circa 1980

Photo: Wimal Rogrigo
Veteran Tamil Trotskyists:

V. Balasubramaniam, P.V. Durairaj,
Siddhaman, 1991.
Photo: Raghu Krishnan, Toronto.
Veteran Tamil Trotskyist:

B.M:K. Ramaswamy, 1991.
Photo: Raghu Krishnan, Toronto.
CHAPTER ONE
Background
In 1608 an English ship dropped anchor at the Indian port of Surat.
When Captain William Hawkins stepped ashore, he marveled at the
bustling markets where merchants hawked "everything from peacock
feathers to white elephants, from coarse grain to opium, from palm
leaves to gold." I Hawkins had been sent by the English East India
Company to petition the Mughal emperor for permission to establish a
trading outpost. The Portuguese and Dutch mercantile companies were
already making a fortune in the India trade. The English wanted a piece
of the action.
At that time Mughal India was regarded the world over as an
economic superpower, second only to China. India manufactured ten
times more output than England. 2 The textile industry in India was
world-class; the workshops in flourishing urban centers, from Surat to
Murshidabad and the Coromandel coast, wove the finest textiles for
export to Europe, the Near East, China, and Southeast Asia. 3 In the
villages the artisans spun cotton, while the farmers grew cash crops for
regional and foreign markets. 4 The European traders were amazed at
the sophistication and reach of the banking system. In Ahmedabad the
merchants, using what today we call commercial paper, conducted
Stanley Wolpert, A New History ofIndia (New York, 1977), p. 143.

Paul Bairoch, "International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980," The
Journal of European Economic History. vol. 11, no. 2 (Fall 1982), pp. 294 and 296.
Kanakalatha Mukund, "Indian Textile Industry in the 17th and 18th Centuries:
Structure, Organization, Responses," Economic and Political Weekly, 19 September
1992, pp. 2057-65; and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "Rural Industry and Commercial
Agriculture in late Seventeenth Century South-Eastern India," Past and Present
(February 1990), p. 92.
John F. Richards (ed.), The Imperial Monetary System of Mughal India (Delhi,
1987), p. 11; and Frank Perlin, "Proto-Industrialization and Pre-Colonial South
Asia," Past and Present, no. 98 (1983), pp. 74-75.
complicated transactions over long distances without money changing

hands.
.
William Hawkins was eager to trade. But the Indian merchants had
little interest in coarse English broadcloth. The traders had to purchase
Indian products with silver and gold. Nevertheless, the investors in the
East India Company reaped double-digit profits. As the late Andre
Gunder Frank so aptly said, "Europe used its American money to buy
itself a ticket on the Asian economic train." 5 Without the plunder of
precious metals from the Americas, "Europe would have been almost
entirely excluded from any participation in the world economy." 6
A hundred years later the balance of world power had changed
dramatically. The once mighty Mughal Empire, beset with civil wars,
began to fragment. The British and French forces in India meddled and
manuevered for advantage, wading deeper and deeper into the anarchy.
Initially the French got the upper hand, capturing Madras from the
English. In 1756 their ally in Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, captured the
British Fort at Calcutta and crammed the survivors into the infamous
Black Hole, where most suffocated. The British got their revenge.
Robert Clive recaptured Calcutta, routed Siraj at Plassey, and dislodged
the French in South India.
In 1783 Parliament declared that "to pursue schemes of conquest
and expansion of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the
wish, the honour, and policy of this nation." It was a bit late for such a
lofty policy of non-intervention. With the conquest of Bengal the East
India Company had become the effective ruler of a province four times
more populous than England, so rich and fertile that the Mughals called
it "paradise on earth."
Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley,
1998), p. 356.
Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient, p. 75. Others have made the same point. D.A.
Washbrook has shown that in the seventeenth century England was still peripheral
to India's dynamic trade networks. D.A. Washbrook, "Progress and Problems:
South Asian Economic and Social History," Modern Asian Studiell, vol. 22, no. I
(1988), p. 60.
A Mafia Raj
Clive and his cronies looted the Mughal treasury in Bengal, which was
like the Fort Knox of its time. Enriched with stolen wealth, the
Company men muscled their way into one profitable trade after
another. The Bengali weavers were forced to sell their goods at reduced
rates to gun-toting Company traders. The Company monopolized the
opium trade, creating what would today be called a drug cartel. Forget
about a civilizing mission. This was a mafia Raj.
Fearful for his throne, the Mughal Emperor in Delhi granted the
Company the right to take over the collection of taxes in Bengal. The
Mughals financed' their state by confiscating a share of the total
produce grown by each village. The Mughals assigned revenuecollection rights to appointed aristocrats and military commanders,
who in turn gathered the specified tribute from the local gentry and
farmers, called zamindars and taluqdars. These landlords were allowed
to keep a tenth of the tribute to support their soldiers, build and
maintain irrigation systems, patronize cultural and religious activities,
and lead an opulent life of their own.
Driven by greed, the Company promptly put the squeeze on the
landlords, collecting twice the revenue in the first year alone.
Landlords who resisted got the strong-arm treatment. 7 It was the
peasants who sl:lffered most. Forced to hand over much of the harvest,
the farmers had little left to fall back on when the crop failed. In 1770
one third of the population of Bengal starved to death. "Enormous,
fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta," wrote Thomas
Macaulay, "while thirty millions of human beings were reduced to the
last extremity of wretchedness." 8
In 1767 the Company instructed its men in the field to "rout out" zamindars who
did not "submit and engage for the regular payment of tht:ir revenues." Quoted in
Chitta Panda, The Decline o/the Bengal Zamindars: Midnapore 1870-1920 (Delhi,
1996), p. 9.
8
Macaulay s Essay on Lord Clive (New York, 1912), p. 64.
The New Despotism
In 1790 the Governor-General in Calcutta, Lord Cornwall is, reported

that "the heavy drain of wealth" had produced "langour" in the villages
of Bengal. 9 The Company was killing the goose that laid the golden
eggs. Cornwallis and his colleagues debated what to do. The outcome
of that debate had far-reaching and profound consequences. It also
sheds light on the murky matter of whether or not pre-colonial India
was "feudal," a subject which has been and continues to be hotly
debated. 10
Quoted in Irfan Habib; "Colonization of the Indian Economy 1757-1900," in I.

Habib, Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception (London, 2002),
p. 301. n. 21.
10
The thesis that feudalism existed in India was mooted in the 1950s by the Marxist,
D.D. Kosambi, who suggested that a "feudalism from above" developed in the
Gupta period, followed by a "feudalism from below" in the Delhi Sultanate.
Damodar D. Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Bombay,
1956), p. 294. He was the godfather of what became the controversial Indian
Feudalism School. See R.S. Sharma, Indian Feudalism, c. 300-1200 (Calcutta,
1965); B.N.S. Yadava, Society and Culture in Northern India in the Twelfth
Century (Allahabad, 1973); D. N. Jha (ed.), Feudal Social Formation in Early
India (Delhi, 1987); Y.K. Thakur, Historiography ofIndian Feudalism (New Delhi,
1989); and GC. Chauh!ln, Origin and Growth of Feudalism in Early India (New
Delhi, 2004). In 1979 Harbans Mukhia poked holes in the feudalism thesis. H.
Mukhia, "Was There Feudalism in Indian History?", reprinted in H. Kulke (ed.),
The State in India, 1000-1700 (Delhi, 1995), pp. 86-133. Om Prakash challenged
the feudal interpretation of the royal land grants. O. Prakash, Early Indian Land
Grants and State Economy (Allahabad, 1988), p. xi. See also D. C. Sircar (ed.),
Land System and Feudalism in Ancient India (Calcutta, 1966), p. 42 and Noboru
Karashima, Towards a New Formation: South Indian Society under Vijayan.agar
Rule (Delhi, 1992), pp. 5-8. Others maintain that feudalism emerged in the Mughal
era. See Nurul Hasan, "The Position of the Zamindars in the Mughal Empire,"
Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 1, no. 4 (1964); P.B. Mayer,.
"South India, North India: The Capitalist Transformation of Two Provincial
Disticts," in H. Alavi (ed.), Capitalism and Colonial Production (London, 1982);
H. Alavi, "India: Transition from Feudalism to Colonial Capitalism," Journal of
Contemporary India, vol. 10 (1980), pp. 359-99; and A. I. Tchitcherov, India:
Changing Economic Structure in the Sixteenth-Eighteenth Cen.turies (New Delhi,
1998). Irfan Habib, on the other hand, considers the "Mughal feudalism" thesis
untenable. Irfan Habib, "Classifying Pre-Colonial India," in T.J. Byres and
H. Mukhia (eds.), "Feudalism and Non-European Societies," special issue of the
In England the feudal aristocracy actually owned their lands. The

Crown acknowledged their rights and levied taxes on their estates. In
India, on the other hand, the Mughal aristocracy did not really own
their domains, at least in any comparable way. The Mughal throne
doled out land grants (called jagirs) to its military commanders and
regional governors, who were thus entitled and obligated to collect the
specified tribute from the villages in their jagirs. The Mughal regime
could revoke the land grants at will; in fact, the land grants were
routinely re-assigned, in order to prevent the revenue collectors from
sinking roots as an independent landed class. 11 The Mughal aristocrats
were often given estates far away from where they were stationed. One
Company officer in Calcutta, Alexander Dow, ridiculed the suggestion
that the Mughalland grants were a form of feudal property. "These are
the fables of men who carried the feudal ideas of Europe into their
relation of the state of India." 12
The Mughal nobility could not freely buy and sell the land under
their jurisdiction. However, they could, and did, parcel out rights to a
share in the revenue. In the early stages of the system some nobles
granted revenue-collection rights to troops under their command in lieu
of pay. In time that practice expanded into outright rent-farming (ijara);
merchants and farmers would bid in auctions for leases that enabled
Journal of Peasant Studies. vo!. 1, nos. 2-3 (1985), pp. 44-53. For a survey of the
changing "official" Marxist views on India see Brendan O'Leary, The Asiatic Mode
of Production: Oriental Despotism. Historical Materialism. and Indian History
.
(Oxford, 1989), pp. 262-39.
11
"The Mughal nobility, unlike contemporary European nobility, was not tied to the
land. Their jagirs (or revenue assignments) were transferred from one place to
another as a matter of routine, and many of them were naqdis. i.e., they received
their pay in cash directly from the treasury. But if the Mughal notables were not
hereditary landlords, it does not follow that they were a commercialized ruling
class. Salary, not commercial profit, was their main object in life. Nor did they, or
any substantial number of them, rise from a mercantile 'middle class', as was they
case with a big section of contemporary English 'oligarchy'." M. Athar AIi, The
Mughal Nobility Under Aurangzeb (Delhi, 1997), p. 154.
12
Quoted in Ranajit Guha, A Rule of Property for Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of
Permanent Settlement (Durham NC, 1981), p. 33.
them to claim a share of the tribute for a specified period of time. 13 As

a result, the land-tenure relationships were often a tangled mess. One
Company agent lamented the "difficulty of ascertaining the actual
proprietors." 14
Having displaced the old Mughal nobility, the Company officials
debated who should be taxed as the "real" owner of the land-the
zamindars, the peasant tenants, or the village collective. Philip Francis
proposed that the British "settle" with the zamindars once and for all.
The rationale was that if the zamindars were given property rights, they
would be grateful, improve the estates, incent their tenants to produce
more, and otherwise start behaving like good gentry. Lord Cornwallis,
a Whig country gentleman himself, agreed. And so in 1793 Cornwallis
issued a proclamation, known as the Permanent Settlement, that fixed
"for ever" the revenue that the landlords would have to pay.
Rather than producing prosperous stability, the Zamindari
Settlement upheaved the traditional village society. The revenue
demand was set at 91 percent of the rent. If a zamindar fell in arrears
even one month, he was imprisoned. and his estate sold at, public
auction. One tax collector called these coercive measures "probably the
strongest engines of terror and compulsion which could be devised." IS
A district magistrate reported that "the old landholders in Midnapore
for the most part were ruined." 16 Zamindars sold plots to moneylenders
and speculators in order to raise cash. One estate was subdivided into
303 pieces in just seven years.
13
C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of
British Expansion, 1770-1870 (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 164-65; and Sanjay
Subrahmanyam (ed.), Merchants, Markets and the State in Early Modern India
(Delhi, 1990), p. 13.
14
Quoted in Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri, "Land Market in Eastern India, 1793-1940.

Part I: The Movement of Land Prices," Indian Economic and Social History
Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (January-March 1975), p. 3.
IS
Quoted in B.B. Chaudhuri, "Land Market in Eastern India, 1793-1940, Part I," p.
14.
16
Quoted in Chitta Panda, The Decline of the Bengal Zamindars, p. 12.
The Tlvtskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
The peasants lost the security of their traditional tenancy right. If a

peasant couldn't pay his tax, he borrowed from the moneylender or
landlord (often one and the same). And if he defaulted, the
moneylenders had a new power, the British courts, to seize his land .
. More and more peasants were impoverished and evicted. 17 Meanwhile,
speculative and parasitic rack-renting grew rapidly. 18 Outsiders bought
and traded sub-leases which entitled the holder to collect a fraction of
the revenue. "Everybody is now anxious to become a zamindar or
landed proprietor," reported the Orissa collector. 19 By 1885 ten million
peasant farmers had to support one million middlemen.
An incident reported in Santhal graphically captured what was
happening. Some peasants, hopelessly burdened with debts, butchered
their moneylender, chanting with each gory slash, "Four Annas, Eight
Annas, Twelve Annas, Paid off!" 20 This was not what Lord Cornwallis
envisioned when he impo~ed "the magic touch of property" on a
communal society that he never understood.
In South India the Company took a different approach. Thomas
Munroe, who had started his career as a revenue official, argued against
a settlement with the local chiefs (the poligars), who were a rebellious
lot. "We have in our anxiety to make everything as English as possible
17
Amit Bhadhuri, "The Evolution of Land Relations in Eastern India Under British
Rule," Indian Economic and Social History Review, vo!. 13, no. 1 (January-March
1976), p. 51; H.R. Sharnla, "Evolution of Agrarian Relations in India," Journal of
the Indian School of Political Economy, vo!. 4, no. 1 (1992), pp. 80-105; N.
Hamid, "Dispossession and Differentiation of the Peasantry during the Period of
Colonial Rule," Journal of Peasant Studies, vo!. 10 (1982-83), p. 59; P.A. Wadia
and K.T. Merchant, Our Economic Problem (Bombay, 1959), pp. 87-88; and Bipan
Chandra, "Re-interpretation of Nineteenth Century Indian Economic History,"
Indian Economic and Social History Review, vo!. 5, no. 1 (March 1968), pp. 46-59.
18
B.B. Chaudhuri, "Land Market in Eastern India, 1793-1940, Part II: The Changing
Composition of the Landed Society," Indian Economic and Social History Review,
vo!. 12, no. 2 (April-June 1975), pp. 133-67.
19
Quoted in B.B. Chaudhuri, "Land Market in Eastern India, 1793-1940. Pali I," p. 9.
20
Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India (New York,
1997), p. 194.
in a country which resembles England in nothing," he wrote,

"attempted to create at once, throughout extensive provinces, a kind of
landed property which had never existed in them." Munroe favored
direct taxation of the peasants (ryots), on a plot-by-plot basis.
In theory the Ryotwari Settlement would foster the development
of a prosperous class of free peasant smallholders. In reality the
government levied such high taxes that most peasants struggled just to
survive. If the harvest was good, the British revenue officers raised the
tax due for that year. If it was bad, they would take everything and
leave the peasant empty-handed.
In 1818 the Madras board of revenue described the state of affairs:
"In pursuit of this supposed improvement, we find them [the tax
officials] unintentionally dissolving the ancient ties, the ancient usages
which united the republic of each Hindu village, and by a kind of
agrarian law, newly assessing and parcelling out the lands which from
time immemorial had belonged to the Village Community
collectively ... binding the Ryot by force to the plough, compelling him
to till land acknowledged to be over-assessed, draggng him back to it if
he absconded, deferring their demand upon him until his crop came to
maturity, then taking from him all that could be obtained, and leaving
him nothing but his bullocks and seed grain, nay, perhaps obliged to
supply him even with these, in order to renew his melancholy task of
cultivating, not for himself, but for them." 21
A Cruel Revolution from Above
In his famous articles on India, written in 1853, Karl Marx described

the devastating impact of the British land policies. "The Zemindari and
the Ryotwari were both of them agrarian revolutions, effected by
British ukases, and opposed to each other; the one aristocratic, the
other democratic; the one a caricature of English landlordism, the other
of French peasant-proprietorship; but pernicious, both combining the
21
Quoted in Romesh Dutt, The Economic History ofIndia. Vo!. 1 (London, 1902), p.
107.
most contradictory character-both made not for the people, who

cultivate the soil, nor for the holder, who owns it, but for the
Government that taxes it." 22
Studying the rich sources of information at his disposal in the
British Library, Marx concluded that the "village republics" of India
had rested on a socio-economic foundation different from the feudal
societies of the West. 23 Ifprivate property in land had never developed,
then there was no inherent motor force for progressive change - Indi~
was like a clock without a spring, frozen in time. The British were the
first ruling class to disrupt, convulse, and transform the economic basis
of society. Marx had to admit that, "abominable as they are," the
settlements created "forms of private property in Land-the great
desideratum of Asiatic society." 24
The Company used the taxes to purchase Indian goods for export
to England, where they were sold or re-exported to Europe. In other
words the Indians were essentially being robbed. This was the "drain"
that Indian nationalists later documented. The one-way transfer enabled
Britain to get a competitive advantage over its Continental rivals and
22
Karl Marx, "India" (5 August 1853), reprinted in K. Marx, On Colonialism

(Moscow, n.d.), p. 73.
2)
The French physician, Franl10is Bernier, who served as court physician to the
Mugha1s for twelve years, reported in his memoirs that the State, rather than the
nobility, owned the land in India. Franyois Bemier, Travels in the Mogul Empire,
A.D~ 1656-1688 (Westminster, 1891), p. 224. This book influenced the thinking of
many leading lights of the Enlightenment, such as John Locke and Montesquieu,
who cited the lack of private property in land as one of the root causes of what he
called "Oriental despotism." When Marx read Bernier, lights went off in his head,
too. He wrote to Engels that what Bernier reported about the absence of private
property in land was "the key" that unlocked the mystery of "the East." Ka"rl Marx
and Friedrich Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow, 1975), pp. 73-6. Marx
regarded the village economy of India to be based on what he called "the Asiatic
mode of production," a form of communal property which had evolved over much
of the globe as a parallel path to the Western European sequence of class societies
(slavery-feudalism-capitalism) which he described in the Communist Manifesto.
24
Karl Marx, "The Future Results of the British Rule in India" (22 July 1853),
reprinted in On Colonialism, p. 77.
helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution. Marx maintained that the

plunder of India, coupled with the profits from the African slave trade,
provided the stimulus. "The treasures captured outside Europe by
undisguised looting, enslavement, and murder floated back to the
mother-country and were there turned into capital." 25
The De-industrialization of India
As the Lancashire textile industry grew, the demand for imported

Indian cloth started to decline. In 1802 the Company's Directors
reported that their Dacca factory had to make "a considerable
reduction" in output, due to "the altered state of the markets which are
now overflowing with substitutes for these goods from British looms,
at rates of price that preclude all prospect of gain on such articles in
our sales." 26
The English capitalists were not yet strong enough to compete on
a level playing field. The Lancashire lobby clamored for protective
tariffs. In 1813 the government slapped a 85 percent duty on Indian
25
26
10
Karl Marx, Capital (1906 edition), p. 826. Brooks Adams, the grandson of the V.S.
President, saw a causal connection. "Very soon after Plassey the Bengal plunder
began to arrive in London, and the effect appears to have been instantaneous."
Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay; An Essay on History (New
York, 1896), p. 313. On the other hand Christopher Hill, who wrote the book on
seventeenth century England, argued that while "spectacularly large sums flowed
into England" from the slave trade and the looting oflndia, "we should attach even
more significance to family and group savings of small producers who ploughed
back their profits into industry or agriculture." Christopher Hill, Reformation to
Industrial Revolution, 1530-1780 (London, 1967), pp. 2000-01. However, as
recent studies have shown, the colonial tribute and domestic savings rate were
connected. "The colonial transfer, in short, enabled Britons to have their cake and
eat it too: to invest substantially even while saving very little out of domestic
income." Vtsa Patnaik, "New Estimates of Eighteenth-Century British Trade and
their Relation to Transfers from Tropical Colonies," in K.N. Panikkar (ed.), The
Making.of History: Essays Presented to Irfan Habib (London, 2002), pp. 389-90.
Quoted in H.R. Ghoshal, "Changes in the Organization of Industrial Production in
the Bengal Presidency in the Early Nineteenth Century," in Birendranath Ganguli
(ed.), Readings in Indian Economic History (Delhi, 1961), pp. 128.
textiles. The export of textile machinery to India was prohibited. In

1833 Parliament revoked the Company's monopoly (except for salt and
opium). India was flooded with Lancashire cotton. "Had not such
prohibitory duties and decrees existed," wrote one contemporary
historian, "the mills of Paisley and Manchester would have been
stopped in their outset and could scarcely have been set in motion even
by the power of steam." 27
The Indian weavers, using pre-industrial technology, struggled to
compete in an unequal contest. While British exports to India surged
fifty fold, Indian exports to Britain plummeted 75 percynt. To make
matters worse for the Indians, the Napoleonic wars disrupted their trade
with Europe. Gradually the handicraft industries declined. 28 Dacca,
Murshidabad, and Surat dwindled. Faced with bleak prospects, some
unemployed weavers tried to eke out a living on the land, while others
became wandering beggars (vairagis) who went door-to-door singing
sad songs about the futility of life.
The "Dual Role" of Colonialism
In his seminal articles on India, written for The New York TriQune in
1853, Marx described how the onslaught of British cotton exports was
undermining the premier industry of India. 29 Nevertheless, while he
denounced the greed and cruelty of the British, Marx also thought that
Britain was carrying out a "double mission in India: one destructive,
the other regenerating-the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the
laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia." 30
27
Horace Hayman Wilson, The History of British India: from 1805 to 1835, vo!. I
(London, 1848), p. 385.
.
28
Michael J. Twomey, "Employment in Nineteenth Century Indian Textiles,"

Explorations in Economic History, vo!. 20, no. 1 (January, 1983), p. 55. In 1830 the
balance of trade finally tipped in England's favor. K.N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World
ofAsia and the English East India Company, 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1978), p. 456.
29
Karl Marx, "The British Rule in India" (10 June 1853), reprinted in On
Colonialism, p. 36.
30
Karl Marx, "The Future Results of the British Rule in India," p. 77.
11
Marx was quick to add, however, that so far the British had
destroyed at lot and regenerated very little. "England has broken down
the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of
reconstitution yet appearing. The loss of his old world, with no gain of
a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present
misery of the Hindoo." 31
Marx was skeptical that the British would really create a "Western
society" in India. "The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new
elements of society scattered among them by the BritIsh bourgeoisie,
till in Great Britain itself the now ruling classes shall have been
supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the Hindus themselves
shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke
altogether." 32 Written in 1853, those were truly prophetic 'words.
The First Popular Rebellion
In 1856 Governor-General Dalhousie annexed Oudh [Awadh], the

heartland of the old Mughal Empire, and expropriated the Oudh
taluqdars [hindlords]. "Our gracious queen," wrote a smug Dalhousie,
"has five million more subjects and 1.3 million pounds more revenue
than she had yesterday." 33 That turned out to be the last straw. Many
Indian soldiers in the Bengal Army were from Oudh. On May 10, 1857
a soldier at Meerut shot his commander. The mutiny spread quickly,
drawing in both Muslim and Hindu soldiers.
The Oudh landlords backed the rebellion and reclaimed their
estates. Villagers paid off old scores. The rebels massacred the English
communities trapped in Delhi, Kanpur, and Lucknow, 'including
women and children. But the insurgents lacked effective, unified
leadership. The British military, initially taken by surprise, recaptured
31
Karl Marx,'''The British Rule in India," p. 33.
32
Karl Marx, "The Future Results of the British Rule in India," p. 80.
33
Quoted in Simon Schama, A History a/Britain. Vol. 3. The Fate of Empire, 17762000 (New York, 2002), p. 327.
The Trotskyist Movement in lfidia and Ceylon
their territory with the aid of loyal Indian troops after six months of
sieges, forced marches, heroism, and brutality.
Reading the slanted newspaper reports in England, Marx and
Engels recognized that some of the Indian rebels were fighting for
reactionary goals, such as restoring the ancien regime, whether Mughal
or Mahratta. But the fact that the rebel forces moved through the
countryside so quickly suggested that they had popular support. Marx
called the Mutiny a "nationl;ll uprising" led by a "revohltionary league." 34
Writing for the New York Herald Tribune, Marx asked rhetorically: "In
view of such facts, dispassionate and thoughtful men may perhaps be
led to ask whether a people are not justified in attempting to expel the
foreign conquerers who have so abused their subjects." 35
Radical Reconstruction in Reverse
The Mutiny was a wake-up call in London. In 1858. Parliament ended

Company rule and took over the administration ofIndia. The government
promptly reversed the Oudh land reform and gave the taluqdars powers
to expropriate the tenants. 36 The grateful landlords formed the British
India Association to help "Her Majesty's administration i1i Hindoostan
34
Karl Marx, "The Revolt in India" (18 September 1857), reprinted in K. Marx and
F. Engels, The First Indian War of Independence, 1857-1859 (Moscow, 1959), p.
88. Marx and Engels took a similar attitude to the Taiping Revolt that was sweeping
China that time. The Taiping rebels attacked the Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty,
espoused social equality, abolished private property, and banned opium and
alcohol, until their defeat in 1864. Marx called their struggle "a popular war for the
maintenance of Chinese nationality, with all its overbearing prejudice, stupidity,
learned ignorance and pedantic barbarism if you like, but yet a popular war." Karl
Marx, "Persia-China" (5 June 1857), reprinted in Marx on China, 1853-1860
(London, 1951), p. 50.
35
Karl Marx, "Investigation of Tortures in India" (28 August 1857), reprinted in The
First Indian War of Independence, 1857-1859, p. 69.
36
In 1863 a British settlement officer described the situation, "The talookdar is in the
saddle, and the underproprietor has to unhorse him; this he can seldom do, and he
loses all in the encounter." Quoted in Thomas R. Metcalf,Land, Landlords and the
British Raj: Northern India in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, 1979), pp. 241-42.
13
and especially in Oudh." One British official called the landlords "a
most useful auxiliary to an alien Government such as ours." 37
After the Mutiny the government initiated what became a massive
program of building railways. In part the motivation was military;
troops could be rushed to future trouble spots quicker. But there was
also an economic incentive; the railways would open up new markets
in the conquered territories. As farmers switched to growing cash crops
for export, the value of the land boomed. 38 Hence the strident loyalism
of the Oudh and Punjab llindlords had an economic basis.
The government stopped deposing Princes, who at that point ruled
about one third of the territory of India. The government offered the
remaining Princes a deal-bow to the British state power and you can
keep your throne and land. That was an offer most couldn't refuse. The
goal was to make the Native States a bulwark. "It would be difficult for
a general rebellion against the British to sweep India," wrote one
official, "because of this network of powerful, loyal Native States." 39
After the Mutiny the ideologues of colonialism played up the
"feudal" character of the Princes, thereby fostering the myth that
Britain was modernizing a medieval society. 40 The British bestowed
on the Princes pompous feudal titles and staged theatrical pageants
worthy of Bollywood. In fact the Princes had been politically
expropriated. The Governor-General oversaw the most powerful rulers:
the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Maharaja of Mysore, the Maharaja of
37
Quoted in Jagdish Raj, Economic Conflict in North India: A Study of LandlordTenant Relations in Oudh. 1870-1890 (Bombay, 1978), preface p. x.
38
In the United Provinces the average land price increased more than fivefold from
1861 to 1900. Shireen Moosvi, "The Indian Economic Experience 1600-1900: A
Quantitative Study," in K.N. Panikkar (ed.), The Making of History: Essays
Presented to Irfan Habib. pp. 346-47.
39
40
14
Quoted in Penderel Moon, Strangers in India (New York, 1945), p. 48.

In 1875 Alfred Lyall, an influential British official, reported that "the whole feeling
of this country is medieval." Another official described the Sikh states as "a
complete and fully organized feudal system," similar to medieval Germany. Quoted
in Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 72 and 73.
Jammu and Kashmir, and the Gaekwar Maharaja of Baroda.

Subordinate bureaucrats managed the hundreds of small fry.
After the Civil War in the United States the northern government
took steps to transform the defeated South. Protected by the occupying
Union Army, the Radical Reconstructionists reformed local
governments, framed democratic state constitutions, and redistributed
land to the emancipated black people. After the defeat of the Indian
Mutiny the British immediately revoked their earlier reforms,
expropriated the peasant smallh<;>lders, propped up the Princes,
sanctioned indentured labor, and deliberately sowed communal
discord. 41 It was like Radical Reconstruction in reverse.
A Belated Industrial Revolution
In 1845 a Parsi businessman proposed to build a textile mill in Bombay.

He saw manufacturing as a way to hedge the risks of his cotton trading
business. If demand slumped, he could process the cotton into lowcount yarn for the China market. However, the plan was risky. He'd
have to import the coal from Bengal, the raw cotton from Gujarat, the
machinery and technicians from England, and labor from the
hinterlands. He failed to raise the necessary capital.
In 1851. another Parsi entrepreneur, Cowasji Davar, tried again. In
order to reduce the risks he utilized a form of limited liability company;
called a managing agency. He raised the necessary capital from fellow
Parsi families, Gujarati merchants, and two English businessmen. This
became the successful model. 42 By 1875 there were 27 textile mills in
Bombay, and over the next ten years the number of mills there increased
41
In 1862 the Secretary of State for India, Sir Charles Wood, wrote to the Viceroy:
"We have maintained our power in India by playing off one part against the other
and we must continue to do so ... Do all you can, therefore to prevent all having a
common feeling."
42
Gijsbert Oonk, "Motor or Millstone? The Managing Agency System in Bombay

and Ahmedabad, 1850-1930," Indian Economic and Social History Review, vo\.
38, no. 4 (2001), pp. 419-52; and Blair King, "The Origins of the Managing
Agency System in India," Journal ofAsian Studies, vo\. 26, no. 1 (1966), pp. 37-48.
15
fivefold. "Bombay has long been the Liverpool of the East," boasted
one newspaper, "and she is now becoming the Manchester also.",43
All the horrors of the Industrial Revolution were recreated in India.
Unfettered by labor legislation, the mill owners kept wages at a
subsistence level. The mill hands had to work dawn-to-dusk, often 18
hours a day, seven days a week. The ill-ventilated textile mills became
dusty ovens in the summer. In the makeshift slums which grew up
around the mills six or more workers would share a single, windowless,
verminous room. Children played in reeking sewers. More than half of
newborns died. One contemporary called these degraded slums
"pestilential plague spots." 44
In India the formation of an industrial "proletariat" was more
protracted and ambiguous than in England or Germany. Most mill hands
were peasants fresh from the village who worked only to payoff their
debts, hold onto their land, or retain their crop shares. 45 They'd return
home for festivals, planting, and harvesting. Moreover, the workers
were recruited in the villages, housed in the slums, and organized in
the mills along caste lines. The very process of industrialization tended
to perpetuate, ifnot reinforce, caste consciousness. 46 Nevertheless, the
Indian workers resisted exploitation just like their counterparts in
Lancashire. By the early 1890s strikes had become a "frequent
occurrence in every one of the mills in the city." 47
43
Morris David Morris, The Emergence of an Industrial Labor Force in India: A

Study of the Bombay Cotton Mills, 1854-1947 (Berkeley, 1965), p. 18.
44
Quoted in Dick Kooiman, Bombay Textile Labour: Managers, Trade Unionists and
Officials, 1918-1939 (New Delhi, 1989), p. 16.
45
Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance

and the State in India, c. 1850-1950 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 66.
46
Susan Bayly; Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to
the Modern Age (Cambridge, 1999), p. 226; and Nicholas B. Dirks, Castes of
Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princetan, 2001), p. 5. In
Czarist Russia the advent of industrialization likewise resulted in "a strengthel)ing
of serfdom as the fundamental form oflabour organization." Leon Trotsky, History
of the Russian Revolution (London, 1932), p. 25.
47
Cited in M.D. Morris, The Emergence of an Industrial Labor Force in India, p. 178.
16
Despite their success in textiles, the Indian industrialists remained

a niche bourgeoisie. The British dominated the economy. Even in
textiles British capital held stakes in many Indian mills through the
managing agency system. Wealthy Indians had plenty of money. What
they lacked were investment opportunities and political power. 48 That
frustration led to the emergence of the Indian nationalist movement.
Her Majesty's Nationalists
Having conquered a highly civilized country, the British had to contend

with a sophisticated and articulate intelligentsia. Indians read about the
virtues of democracy out lived in a racist autocracy. No matter how
much Milton he might memorize, no Indian had a chance at any
position of real power in the government. Only twelve Indians had been
admitted to the Indian Civil Service in 25 years. Indians were not
promoted above the rank of brigadier in the military. The Commanderin-Chief, Lord Roberts, stated that no Indian, no matter how brave in
battle, could ever be regarded "as an equal b.y the British officer." 49
Indian intellectuals formed patriotic organizations to press for
reforms. 50 They quoted the great English democrats to shame the
government for its "un-British" rule in India. Like Edmund Burke, the
godfathers of Indian nationalism condemned the evils of colonialism
but didn't think independence was the solution. With the memory of
the Mutiny still fresh, the Indian elite feared that another elemental
revolt would unleash dark forces of retrogression. They argued that
Britain had a duty to improve the lot of the colonial peoples and
gradually introduce measures of self-government.
48
49
so
Shyam Rungta, The Rise of Business Corporations in India, 1851-1900 (London,

1970), pp. 184-85, 269; Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Pr.ivate Investment in India, 19001939 (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 3-5,47-48,420-25.
Quoted in George Arthur, Life of Lord Kitchener. Vo!. 2 (New York, 1920), p. 177.
Briton Martin, New India 1885: British Official Policy and the Emergence of the
Indian National Congress (Berkeley, 1969), pp. 40-52.
The nationalists found an important champion in Allan Octavian

Hume, a liberal reformer who had retired from the Indian government.
Hume was a controversial character. He had an eccentric side,
expressed in his fascination with Theosophy and the occult. 51 He warned
that the Raj was "truly in extreme danger of a most terrible revolution"
and that a "safety valve for the escape of great and growing forces"
was urgently needed. 52 He backed the formation of the Indian National
Congress in 1885 to, in his words, "limit, control, and direct" the
discontent of the Westernized intellectuals into "safe channels." 53
The founding fathers of the Congress were loyal to the British. At
the inaugural session Surendranath Banerjea appealed to England
"gradually to change the character of her rule in India, so that, in the
fullness of time, India may find its place in the great confederacy of
free states, English in their origin, English in their character, English in
their institutions, rejoicing in their permanent and indissoluble union
with England." 54 AlIan Octavian Hume was elected Secretary. He led
the group in cheers for Her Majesty.
In its first two decades the Congress was more like an elite caucus
than a political party. The Congress met once a year, passed resolutions,
and then disbanded. The Congress regarded itself as the progressive
voice of the entire people. But it had a definite class bias. The early
nationalists, who were mainly from the well-to-do middle classes,
regarded the capitalist development of India as the road to progress.
51
The Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, dismissed Hume as "cleverish, a little cracked,

extremely vain and absolutely indifferent to truth." Quoted in Bipan Chandra,
Indias Struggle for Independence, 1857-1947 (New Delhi, 1988), p. 70.
52
William Wedderburn, Alan Octavian Hume: 'Father of the Indian National

Congress '1829-1912. A Biography. (New Delhi, 2002), pp. 63-64 and p. 66. Hume
may not have been so paranoid after all. In 1875 peasants in the Deccan rioted. In
1879 a young Maharatta nationalist organized the first armed uprising against the
British since the Mutiny.
Quoted in Daniel Argov, Moderates and Extremists in the Indian Nationalist
Movement (New York, 1967), p. 63.
53
54
18
Quoted in S.M. Burke and Salim AI-Din Quraishi, The British Raj in India
(Oxford, 1995), p. 49.
Yet the Indian bourgeoisie itself was still in its infancy. In that sense
the Congress had a vicarious quality and functioned as a surrogate for a
domestic class that was still in the process of formation.
Not all nationalists were Anglophiles content to patiently plead
and petition for reforms. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a fiery populist from
the militant Mahratta school who espoused an indigenous nationalism
based on the Hindu revivalist movement. His motto was "Organize,
educate, and politicize the common people." Tilak was the first
nationalist to demand complete freedom. "Swarai is my birthright and
I will have it." Tilak was associated with other radical nationalists, such
as Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal, Chidambaram Pillai in Madras, and
Ajit Singh in the Punjab. This group was called the "Extremist" wing
of the Indian National Congress.
The Bourgeois Nationalists and the "Feudal" Aristocracy
In the West the nascent bourgeoisie had been pitted against the landed
aristocracy derived from the feudal era. In India, however, the modern
bourgeoisie was tied to the whole system oflandlordism that the British
created. In Bengal many of the educated nationalists came from
prosperous families who derived income from estates that had been
obtained in the various Zamindari settlements. Hence it is not
surprising that the Congress did not oppose the two "feudal"
institutions in India-the Princely States and the system of
landlordism.
Most Congress leaders, Moderates and Extremists alike, praised
the Princes and pointed to the Native States as proof that Indians could
govern themselves. Most Princes did not reciprocate; few actively
supported the Congress in the beginning. Nevertheless, the
Congressmen deliberately avoided confrontation. Tilakwrote: "Once
we attain Swaraj, it would not be difficult to pressurize the princes for
liberalizing their autocratic regimes." 55
ss
Quoted in Shanta Sathe, Lokmanya Tilak: His Social and Political Thoughts
(Delhi, 1994), p. 79.
19
Likewise, the Congress supported the Zamindari system and asked

that it be extended throughout India. The nationalist ideologue,
Romesh Chunder Dutt, wrote that "the Permanent Settlement of 1793
is the wisest and most successful measure which the British nation has
ever adopted in India." 56 At various times the nationalists joined with
the landlords to oppose tenancy acts that formally gave the peasants
occupancy tenure. 57
The nationalists used their wealth, status, and education to
challenge the autocratic government. Yet the Congress dared not attack
the social bases of the Raj. "This situation," notes one historian,
"prevented the crystallization of a true bourgeoisie armed with a
conquering ideology." 58
The First Mass Protest Movement
In 1903 Viceroy Curzon announced that the province of Bengal would

be partitioned, supposedly to enable the government to better adminster
the smaller units. The nationalists cried, "Divide and Rule!" Their
opposition was perhaps not entirely altruistic. The value of their land
had been steadily declining over the past three decades. If Bengal were
divided, the government could raise the revenue demand (taxes), which
had been fixed "for ever" by the Permanent Settlement in 1793.
56
Romesh Dutt, The Economic History of India. Vol. 1, pp. 67-68.
57
In 1859 the Ripon administration passed a tenancy act that gave the tenant farmer
the right to occupy his land after he had tilled it for twelve consecutive years. The
zamindars thwarted the law by shifting tenants from one plot to another or raising
the rent so much that the tenant had to move before the twelve years had passed.
That eventua1ly provoked peasant outbursts in Bengal from 1873-75. To de-fuse
the situation Viceroy Dufferin proposed a new tenancy bill that gave the peasant
occupancy tenure and limited the ability of the zamindars to raise rents. Briton
Martin, New India 1885, p. 32. Likewise the Punjab Alienation Act of 1900 prevented
the transfer of land to non-cultivating classes. The moneylenders put pressure on
Congress to oppose the act in the name of protecting the land and credit markets.
D.N. Dhanagare, Peasant Movements in India 1920-1950 (Delhi, 1983), p. 46.
5S
Claude Markovits, Indian Business and Nationalist Politics, 1931-1939: The

Indigenous Capitalist Class and the Rise of the Congress Party (Cambridge,
1985), p. 19.
20
In 1906 the Congress called for a boycott of British goods until the
Partition of Bengal Act was revoked. The nationalists asked Indians to
buy domestic products, called Swadeshi [own country], rather than
British imports. For the first time the Congress appealed to the people
to come into the streets for demonstrations and rallies. In Calcutta
patriotic Bengalis gathered and burned their British clothing in big
bonfires. Surendranath Bannerjea, the old Moderate, delivered such
rousing speeches that he got the nickname, "Surrender Not."
The boycott was a boon to the Indian textile industry. The
Ahmedabad mills, for example, doubled their production to meet the
surging demand for swadeshi cloth. Many Indian mill owners
supported the Swadeshi movement in pursuit of their own interests. 59
British imports slumped for a while in Bengal. 60
Encouraged by the Swadeshi movement, J.N. Tata, a Parsi
entrepreneur, proposed to build a huge steel plant. He had tried once
before, in 1883, and failed for want of government support and British
investment. 61 But the times had changed. Belgian and German steel
companies were capturing the Indian market. The Viceroy promised
Tata the infrastructure and government contracts he needed. 62 But this
time Tata didn't need foreign financing. Thanks to the nationalist
fervor, he raised his capital in just three weeks from rich Indians,
including the "feudal" Prince of Gwalior.
59
A.P. Kannangara, "Indian MiIlowners and Indian Nationalism Before 1914," Past
and Present [Oxford], 40 (July 1968).
60
Like all consumer boycotts, the Swadeshi campaign didn't make. a lasting dent.
While British imports to Bengal slumped during 1905-06, they actually increased
in Bombay. And even in Bengal, the success was short-lived. By 1908 the import
of Manchester products had recovered and exceeded the 1905 level.
61
In 1883 Tata wanted to build an iron and steel plant in Bihar, close to the source of
the coal. The Viceroy was cooperative, but the Secretary of State in England was
hostile. Moreover, Tata's agent in London reported that British capitalists "would
not think of putting their money in the new enterprise especially when old and tried
industries were offering a more favourable and safer investment." Quoted in Vinay
Bahl, The Making ofthe Indian Working Class: The Case of the Tata Iron and Steel
Co., 1880-1946 (New Delhi, 1995), pp. 72-73.
62
V. Bahl, The Making of the Indian Working Class, p. 73.
21
The Birth of the Revolutionary Movement
As the protests in Bengal grew, the authorities cracked down hard. The
police whipped students who paraded the streets and dispersed
Congress meetings at gunpoint. The nationalist paper, Jugantar [New
Era], declared, "Force must be stopped by force." 63 As one radical
recalled, "everyone seemed to be saying, 'No. This can't go on. We've
got to blowout the brains of one of these bastards' ."64 Some Extremists
began recruiting youth for just that purpose.
Aurobindo Ghosh, who later became a famous mystic, was the
ideologue. His brother, Barin, taught the young patriots how to make
homemade bombs. Young Bengalis joined the secret societies "simply
out of an innate hatred of British rule." 65 The revolutionaries targeted
policemen, judges, and other government officials. The British used to
denigrate the Bengalis as an "effete" people, fit only to be clerks, not
warriors, like the "manly" tribes of the Northwest Frontier. This was
payback time.
The nationalist movement polarized. While the Extremists
applauded the terrorists and called for expanding the Swadeshi
movement, the Moderates got cold feet. In 1907 the Congress split.
While the Extremists appealed to the radical youth, the Moderates redefined "swaraj" to mean "colonial self-rule." The government
introduced the Morely-Minto Reforms to bolster the Moderates. For the
first time an Indian-a laywer and rich landowner-was appointed to
the Viceroy's Council.
The Extremists went on the offensive. In the Punjab Ajit Singh
called upon Hindus and Muslims to rise as one against the British.
Violent riots followed in Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Amritsar. The
government quickly exiled Ajit Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai to Burma.
63
Quoted in Krishan Mohan, Revolutionary Politics and Indian Freedom Movement

(Jaipur, 1999), p. 59.
64
Quoted in Peter Heehs, The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism
in India. 1900-1910 (Delhi, 1993), p. 116.
65
Peter Heehs, Nationalism. Terrorism. Communalism (Delhi, 1998), p. 3.
22
Similar spontaneous outbursts took place in South India. Chidambaram

Pillai was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1908 Tilak was arrested
in Bombay. When he was sentenced to penal exile for six years, the
Bombay workers staged a general strike for six days. During the street
protests, British troops killed 16 mill hands. The repression subdued
the movement, for the time being.
The Socialists and the Colonial Question
As his comments on the Indian mutiny showed, Karl Marx would have
been delighted to see another popular uprising drive the British out of
India. In his mind colonial rule was not only unjust to the subject
peoples, but it also served to sustain and even reinvigorate capitalism. 66
In 1882 Engels wrote to Karl Kautsky, his protege and the future high
priest of Marxist doctrine in Germany: "India will perhaps, indeed very
probably, make a revolution ... The same might also take place
elsewhere, e.g. in Algeria and Egypt, and would certainly be the best
thing for us." 67
In 1889 the Paris meeting of the International Socialist Congress
founded the Second International. Engels advised from the sidelines
until his death in 1895. After that, the German Social Democrats
66
67
Marx mused in a letter to Engels: "There is no denying that bourgeois society has
for the second time experienced its 16th century, a 16th century which, I hope, will
sound its death knell just as the first ushered it into the world. The proper task of
bourgeois society is the creation of the world market, at least in outline, and of the
production based on that market. Since the world is round, the colonisation of
California and Australia and the opening up of China and Japan would seem to
have completed this process. For us, the difficult question is this: on the Continent
revolution is imminent and will, moreover, instantly assume a socialist character.
Will it not necessarily be crushed in this little corner of the earth, since the
movement of bourgeois society is still in the ascendant over a far greater area? "
Karl Marx to F. Engels, 8 October 1857, reprinted in Shlomo Avineri (ed.), Karl
Marx on Colonialism and Modernization (New York, 1968), p. 439.
Friedrich Engels, letter to Karl Kautsky, 12 September 1882, published as appendix
to K. Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik: eine Auseinandersetzung (Berlin,
1907), p. 79. Most of the letter is reprinted in Shlomo Avineri, Karl Marx on
Colonialism and Modernization, pp. 447-48.
23
provided both the backbone and brains. In 1896 the London congress
of the International debated the national question and passed a vague
resolution opposing colonialism. 68 However, in practice the Socialist
parties in the imperialist countries did not act on that resolution. In
Britain the Labour movement tended to regard colonialism as a
capitalist distraction. 69 While he opposed British colonialism and
German imperialist ambitions, Kautsky stopped short of demanding
independence for India. 70 His rationale, however, was impeccably
Marxist.
As is well known, Marx regarded the Czar as the main threat to
European democracy. He viewed the national question in that context.
He supported freedom for the Poles and Magyars, on the basis that they
would be a buffer, while he opposed the movements of the Czechs and
South Slavs, on the basis that they would be stepping stones for further
Russian expansionism. Kautsky applied that logic in the case of India.
By the 1880s the Czarist state was on a collision course with the British
in Afghanistan. Kautsky feared that the "Great Game" would ignite a
world war. "Whatever one may think of the British regime in India,"
Karl Kautsky explained, "a Russian one would without a doubt be
worse ... Every particular national interest has to be subordinated to the
fight against it [Russian despotism], however important and legitimate
it be." 71
"Socialist Imperialism"
In 1901 Henri Van Kol, a Dutch Socialist who had worked in Indonesia
for fourteen years, argued that Socialists should adopt a more
68
The resolution merely expressed "sympathy with the workers of any country at
present suffering under the yoke of military, national or other despotisms." Quoted
in RH. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution. vo\. 1 (New York, 1951), p. 423.
69
Bemard Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists (Oxford, 2004), pp. 217-18.
70
K. Kautsky, "Germany, England, and the World Policy," The Social Democrat, vo\.
4, no. 8 (August, 1900), pp. 230-36.
71
Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik, p. 70.
24
"positive" program on the colonies. His own party had turned a blind
eye to the question, neglecting to mention Indonesia in their founding
program or their election campaign. But Van Kol bent the stick far in
the opposite direction. By 1904 he was arguing that the workers had "a
powerful interest in the flowering of the colonies." 72
In 1906 August Bebel, the co-founder of German Social
Democracy, endorsed the heretical position. "The pursuit of a colonial
policy can under certain circumstances be a civilizing deed." 73 At the
Stuttgart congress of the Second International the following year the
pro-colonial socialists submitted a resolution to that effect. 74 In the
debate Eduard Bernstein, the prophet of evolutionary socialism, stated
that socialists "should acknowledge the need for civilized peoples to
act somewhat like the guardians of the uncivilized." 75 Kol declared that
S'ociaIists would have to keep "their" colonies with "arms in hand," if
necessary. 76
Kautsky and others attacked this resolution. But the most powerful
intervention came quite unexpectedly. Madame Bhikaji Cama, an
aristocratic Parsi who had become an ardent nationalist, mounted the
podium dressed in a flowing sari. A striking woman, she galvanized the
delegates with her fiery denunciation of British imperialism. And then,
in an electrifying gesture, she unfurled the tricolor nationalist flag and
declared, "This flag is of India's independence. Behold, it is born. It is
already sanctified by the blood of martyred Indian youth. I call upon
you, gentlemen, to rise and salute the flag of Indian independence."
The resolution for a "positive colonial policy" was rejected, albeit in a
close vote.
72
Cited in Erik Hansen, "Marxists and Imperialism: The Indonesian Policy of the
Dutch Social Democratic Workers Party, 1894-1914," Indonesia. vo1.16 (October
1973), p. 91.
7J
Quoted in Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik. p. 7.
74
Quoted in Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolollialpolitik. p. 4.
75
Quoted in Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik. p. 6.
76
Quoted in Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus ulld Kolonialpolitik. p. 7.
25
After the congress Kautsky published a polemic against the procolonial socialists, entitled Socialism and Colonial Policy, which
became a Bible of sorts for the Marxist wing of the movement. He
rejected the claim that an era of capitalism was inevitable in the
"backward" colonies. He had a trump card: a letter that Engels had
written to him in 1882. Engels stated that a socialist England would
lead the colonies "as rapidly as possible towards independence." 77 He
added that if India revolted, the Socialists would have to let the
revolution run its course. "One thing alone is certain: the victorious
proletariat can force no blessings of any kind upon any foreign nation
without undermining its own victory by so doing."
The issue of the "positive colonial policy" was never formally
resolved. It was a ticking time bomb that would eventually explode the
Second International in 1914. The Socialists who had vowed to civilize
the colonies ended up supporting the most savage war the world had
known. Only a minority, including the Russian Bolsheviks and Trotsky,
opposed the "imperialist war" and called for the freedom of all
colonies. In 1915 Lenin declared that if the Bolsheviks came to power,
"we would propose peace to all the belligerents on the condition that
freedom is given to the colonies and all peoples that are dependent,
oppressed and deprived of rights." 78 And that is exactly what Lenin
and Trotsky did in 1917. 79
77
Appendix to Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik, p. 79.
78
v.I.
79
26
Lenin, "Several Theses" (13 October 1915), in Collected Works, vo!. 21

(Moscow, 1964), pp. 403-404.
On November 7, 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power. The very next day the Soviet
Congress issued a "Decree on Peace," which denounced the Allied powers for not
giving the right of self-determination to Ireland, India, and their other colonial
possessions. At the Brest-Litovsk negotiations Leon Trotsky, the Soviet Commissar
for Foreign Affairs, blasted the Wilsonian doctrine as "the defense of the most
naked, the most cynical imperialism." Trotsky appealed to the peoples of the Allied
countries "to found a peace upon the complete and unconditional recognition of
the principle of self-determination for all peoples in all states giving this right to
the oppressed peoples of their own states." Quoted in Arno J. Mayer, Political
Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918 (New Haven, 1959), p. 306.
Setting the East Ablaze
The Third International (Comintern) was founded in early 1919. At that

point the Bolsheviks were confident that red revolution was imminent
in war-ravaged Europe. Grigori Zinoviev, the flamboyant president of
the Comintern, who was later to be executed by Stalin, brashly
predicted that Europe would be socialist within a year. The Manifesto
of the founding congress, written by Trotsky, proclaimed that "socialist
Europe will come to the aid of liberated colonies with her technology,
her organization, and her ideological influence in order to facilitate
their transition to a planned and organized socialist economy." 80
The Russian Revolution of 1905 had sent tremors through Asia. In
Persia reformers revolted against the Shah, elected a parliament, and
implemented a democratic constitution. In Turkey young army officers
rebelled against the Sultan and forced him to summon a parliament. In
China the nationalists overthrew the Manchus and made Sun Vat Sen
president of the new republic. In Bombay the textile workers staged
their first political strike. Inspired by these developments, Lenin called
the awakening working masses of Asia "inflammatory material" in
world politics. 81
The Bolsheviks thought that the impact of the October Revolution
would be even greater. The Comintern vowed to "set the East ablaze."
And there was no lack of combustible material. Muslims, from Turkey
to India, were up in arms over the defeat of the Ottomans and mobilized
to restore the Caliphate [Khilafat]. The Bolsheviks were eager to
encourage their jihad against British imperialism, which at that point
was their number one enemy.
In India the Ali brothers appealed to their brethern to join the
Khilafat movement. Recognizing that the Muslims were a potent force,
80
81
Leon Trotsky, "Manifesto of the Communist International to the Proletariat of the

Entire World," reprinted in Jane Degras (ed.), Th.e Communist International, 19191943: Documents, vol. 1: 1919-1922 (London, 1956), p. 43.
v.I. Lenin, "Inflammable Material in World Politics" (5 August 1908), in Collected

Works, vol. 15 (Moscow, 1963), pp. 182-83.
27
Gandhi solidarized with the Khilafat cause and called for nationwide
protests against the "Satanic government." He promised that if people
followed his non-violent creed, he could win "Swaraj in a year."
Though most of the protests were orderly, in Amritsar mobs looted
banks, torched government buildings, and killed several Europeans.
The local British 'commander retaliated with a mass slaughter, known
as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. 82 With that infamous act, the British
set India on fire for the Bolsheviks.
The Formulation of Communist Policy
Given the turmoil in India and elsewhere, Lenin and Trotsky

recognized the need for a Communist policy in "the East." 83 But they
had to start almost from scratch. Not only was the world a very
different place after the war. But they didn't have much in terms of
Marxist theory to build upon. As we have seen, the Second
International produced very little on the question.
82
Although the governor of the Punjab had banned all public meetings, thousands
gathered peacefully in a walled park in Amritsar, known as the Jallianwala Bagh,
for an annual spring celebration. The local commander, Brigadier-General Dyer,
marched his troops to the park, blocked the single exit, and ordered his men to
open fire on the trapped throng. After ten minutes of shooting, hundreds of men,
women, and children had been killed. Dyer later testified that he had decided in
advance "to do all the men to death," because "it would be doing a jolly lot of good
and they would realise they were not to be wicked." Quoted in Savita Narain, The
Historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919 (South Godstone [UK],
1998), p. 37.The government forced Dyer to retire, the lightest punishment
possible. The House of Lords protested even this gesture, and the Morning Post
opened a fund for the "Savior of the Punjab."
83
At that point Trotsky had become the commander of the Red Anny which was
fighting anti-Bolshevik armies on all sides. In 1919, after the Reds had broken
through Kolchak's forces in Central Asia, Trotsky saw an opening for an offensive
towards the Northwest Frontier of British India. In a confidential memorandum to
the party leadership back in Moscow Trotsky posed the possibility of using the Red
Army to incite uprisings against the British. "The road to India may prove at the
given moment to be more readily passable and shorter for us than the road to Soviet
Hungary." Jan M. Meijer (ed.), The Trotsky Papers 1917-1922. vo\. 1 (The Hague,
1964), p. 623.
28
Moreover, the Bolsheviks couldn't just "go back to Marx," like

Lenin had done when he wrote his State and Revolution. The articles
that Marx had written on India and China, as well as most of his letters
to Engels on the subject, were buried in obscurity-an important point
that historians seem to have missed all these years. The key articles
that Marx penned for the New York Tribune were not unearthed and
published until 1925. 84
As is well known, Lenin drafted a position paper, called the
"Theses on the National and Colonial Question," to be placed before
the Second Congress of the Comintern. The fact that he joined those
two issues-the national and colonial-is significant. Lenin was
adamant about the proper handling of the national question. If a party
didn't support the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, and
fight for that right in practice, then they couldn't be part of the
Comintern. His draft theses stated that the. workers in the West,
especially in the imperialist countries, had to support the
"revolutionary nationalists" in the colonial and semi-colonial countries.
Lenin circulated his theses to delegates who were arriving in
Russia for the Second Congress and requested their comments. One of
those delegates was M.N. Roy, the brilliant Bengali terrorist turned
Communist. When he read the draft theses, he was taken aback.
Communists should support the "revolutionary bourgeoisie"? Roy had
participated in the Swadeshi movement as a youth and he had seen how
the so-called "democrats" bolted the moment the bombs started flying.
That is why he and so many other disillusioned radicals joined the
84
The Russian socialist scholar, David Riazanov (1870-1938), deserves much credit
for finding, validating, compiling, and publishing the dispersed works of Marx and
Engels. After the October Revolution, Riazanov became director of the MarxEngels Institute in Moscow. In 1925 he published Marx's articles on India from
1853. David Riazanov, "Karl Marx: ilber China und Indien," Unter dem Banner
des Marxismus, vo!. 1, no. 2 (July 1925), pp. 370-78. Even then, Riazanov didn't
have a complete file of the New York Tribune; in 1931 the Institute announced that
it had recently acquired Ha very rare file of the New York Tribune, including the
years when Marx and Engels collaborated with it." L.B., "The Marx-Engels
Institute," La Critique sociale, no.2, July 1931, pp. 51-52.
29
The Trotskyist.Movement in India and Ceylon
terrorist groups. In his opinion Lenin had gone overboard in attributing

a revolutionary role to the colonial bourgeoisie.
In his memoirs M.N. Roy recounted his private discussions with
Lenin. "He argued that Imperialism had held the colonial countries
back in feudal social conditions, which hindered the development of
capitalism and thwarted the ambition of the native bourgeoisie.
Historically, the national liberation movement had the significance of
the bourgeois democratic revolution. Every stage of social evolution
being historically detennined, the colonial countries must have their
bourgeois democratic revolution before they could enter the stage of
the proletarian revolution. The Communists, therefore, must help the
colonial liberation movement under the leadership of the nationalist
bourgeoisie, regarding the latter as an objectively revolutionary force." 85
In his earlier articles on the East, written after the 1905
Revolution, Lenin had in fact hailed the liberal refonners in Turkey,
Persia, China, and India as "revolutionary democrats." 86 He enthused
that the era of bourgeois-democratic revolutions "has just started in the
East and in Asia." 87 Whereas the Western bourgeoisie had turned
reactionary after 1848, "in Asia there is still a bourgeoisie capable of
championing sincere, militant, consistent democracy, a worthy comrade
of France's great men of the Enlightenment and great leaders of the
close of the eighteenth century." 88
Roy, on the other hand, thought India was closer to Russia in 1905
than to France in 1789. In his opinion the rising progressive class in
Asia was the proletariat, not the bourgeoisie. He was not the first to
draw that analogy. In 1917 K.M. Troyanovsky, a Ukrainian Bolshevik,
declared that India would play the same role in the East that Russia had
85
86
87
88
30
Manabendranath Roy, M.N. Roys Memoirs (Bombay, 1964), p. 379.

v.1. Lenin, "Democracy and Narodism in China" (15 July 1912), in Collected
Works. vo\. 18, p. 163.
V.1. Lenin, "Theses for a Lecture on the National Question" (January-February
1914), in Collected Works. vo\. 41 (Moscow, 1969), p. 314.
v.1. Lenin, "Democracy and Na~odism in China."
in the West. 89 In his discussions with Lenin, Roy recited facts to show
how much Indian capitalism, and with it the working class, had grown
during the war. Lenin was receptive. He asked Roy to contribute
supplementary theses. Roy did so, and both theses were submitted to
the Colonial Commission which met during the Second Congress.
The "Lenin-Roy debate" in the Colonial Commission has been
rehashed a thousand times. Basically, the discussion raised more
questions than it answered. By all accounts Lenin showed a willingness
to reconsider some of his assumptions. He reformulated his
controversial thesis on supporting bourgeois nationalists: the
Communists should support bourgeois nationalists only if (a) they are
"really revolutionary" and (b) they allow the Reds to organize
independently. He also agreed that, as a theoretical proposition, the
"backward countries" could, with the help of the USSR and socialist
workers of the West, proceed to a Soviet order without having to plod
through a protracted period of capitalism. However, like Engels in
1882, Lenin refused to speculate about the class dynamics of that
process in any given country. He very deliberately left open the
question of "stages."
After the congress Lenin encouraged Roy to pursue his ideas. In
1921 Roy submitted a report on class relations and the structure of the
Indian economy. Lenin was enthusiastic. He asked Roy to develop the
report into a book "which would give a realistic picture of
contemporary Indian society and open up the perspective of the Indian
revolution." 90 In 1921 Roy started work on what would eventually be
the book, India in Transition, the first attempt at a Marxist analysis of
Indian history.
89
90
Xenia JoukoffEudin and Robert C. North, Soviet Russia and the East: 1920-1927
(Stanford, 1957), p. 92. Troyanovsky called India "the citadel of the revolution in
the East."
M.N. Roy, Memoirs, p. 552.
31
The First Marxist Book on India
In his memoirs Roy recounts that the Bolsheviks thought that feudalism
was "the predominating social factor in contemporary India." 91 From
that assumption, they concluded that the Indian bourgeoisie was a
revolutionary force. If Marx's writings on India had been known to
them, they probably would have thought otherwise. Marx had made it
clear-from his New York Tribune articles in the 1850s up to the
copious notes on India he had taken in the year or so before he diedthat he did not regard India as feudal. 92 However, none of those key
writings had yet been published. 93
Though he did not know what Marx had written about India, Roy
independently arrived at many of the same conclusions. "Contrary to
the general notion," the book begins, "India is not under the feudal
system. In India, feudalism was destroyed, or more correctly speaking,
undermined not by a violent revolution, as in Europe, but by a
comparatively peaceful and gradual process." 94 He proceeded to
summarize the impact of the British land reforms and destructive trade
policies.
91
M.N. Roy, Memoirs. pp. 551-52.
92
In his unpublished notebooks Marx criticized the Russian schohlr Maxsim

Kovalevsky for calling pre-British India "feudal." K. Marx, "Excerpts from M.M.
Kovalevskij, Obscinnoe Zemlevadenie." in Lawrence Krader, The Asiatic Mode of
Production (Assen, 1975), pali II, pp. 373ff. Marx also wrote harsh notes on John
Btidd Phear, a British judge in colonial India who authored The Aryan Village in
India and Ceylon (1880). "This ass Ph ear calls the constitution of the village
feudal." Lawrence Krader (ed.), The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx (Assen,
1974), part II, p. 256.
93
The Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Dkonomie was published in 1939. The
Marx-Engels correspondence began to be systematically published in 1929-31. The
so-called "ethnological notebooks" were published in 1974. It is not too surprising,
therefore, that even the canonical works on Marxism published during the era of
the Second International do not mention the "Asiatic mode of production." See for
example Franz Mehring, Karl Marx: Geschichteseines Lebens (Leipzig, 1919).
94
M.N. Roy, "India in Transition" (1922), reprinted in Sibnarayan Ray (ed.), Selected
Works ofM.N. Roy. vol. 1: 1917-22 (Delhi, 1987), p. 189.
Roy did not ignore the vestiges of the old order in British India.
But, like Marx, he emphasized that colonialism produced a
contradictory amalgam, in which capitalist relationships were "grafted
on to the body" of the pre-capitalist society. 95 "The incurable economic
bankruptcy of the agrarian population of India is due to the fact that a
backward and antiquated method of production has been reduced to the
most modern and highly developed form of exploitation." 96
Roy showed that the Indian bourgeoisie emerged not in opposition
to the landed aristocracy, as in Europe, but through the system of
landlordism that the British created: "the elements that might have
given rise to a native bourgeoisie were diverted from their natural
development into a landholding class, for the convenience of a foreign
bourgeoisie who conquered the political power and wanted to
monopolize the right of exploiting the whole popUlation. The modern
Indian bourgeoisie is largely derived from this landholding class." 97
Despite its rapid growth during the war, "the Indian bourgeoisie is
still very weak and is bound to be unsteady in its purpose." 98 Roy
concluded that the bourgeoisie would not lead a national-liberation
movement very far: "Therefore, to rely on the national solidarity under
purely bourgeois leadership for the purpose of destroying British rule
in India may not be always safe. The overthrow of the British rule will
be achieved by the joint action of the bourgeoisie and the masses, but
how this joint action can be consumated, still remains a question." 99
As Roy was writing those words, Gandhi was leading a mass
movement that would put his assumptions and predictions to the test.
95
M.N. Ray, "India in Transition," p. 242.
96
97
98 .
99
The Rise and Demise of Non-Cooperation
Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement in January, 1921. "In

every square," recalled one youthful participant in Calcutta, "huge
crowds stood in serried ranks, listening with excited gestures and
shouts, to the harangues of the leaders." 100 While Hindus were more
numerous, the Muslims were more militant. In Calcutta the Khilafat
Volunteers wore improvised uniforms; elsewhere Muslims mustered
for military drills, armed with swords and wooden staves.
In the villages the crusade took on a millenarian fen'or. Muslim
agitators warned the faithful that they'd burn in hellfire if they didn't
oppose the "Satanic government." Hindu volunteers staged open-air
dramas portraying Gandhi as the incarnation of Rama. There were
rumors that spiders were weaving Gandhi's name in their cobwebs. 101
Some peasants swore they saw visions of Gandhi. 102 "We found the
whole countryside afire with enthusiasm and full of a strange
excitement," Jawaharlal Nehru recalled. "Enormous gatherings would
take place at the briefest notice by word of mouth." 103
Gandhi preached that Non-Cooperation should not stir up class
conflicts. He wanted no strikes; "it is dangerous to make political use
of the factory workers." He instructed his followers in the rural areas
not to withhold taxes from the Government or rent from the landlords.
104 He rebuked Congress activists who did. 105 However, local leaders
100
Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Thy Hand. Great Anarch! India 1921-1952 (London: 1987),
p. 12.
101
David Hardiman, The Coming

(Delhi, 1987), p. 4.
102
S. Amin, "Gandhi as Mahatma, Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921-22," in

Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies, vo!. 3, pp. 1-61.
103
S. Wolpert, Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny (New York, 1996), p. 46.
104
M. Gandhi, "Instructions to U.P. Peasants" (9 March 1921), in The. Collected Works

o/Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 19 (Ahmedabad, 1966), p. 4 1 9 . '
105
Atlury Murali, "Civil Disobedience Movement in Andhra 1920-22: The Nature of

Peasant Protest and the Methods of Congress Political Mobilization," in K. Kumar
(ed.), Congress and Classes. p. 172; Stephen Henningham, Peasant Movements in
Colonial India: North Bihar 19/7-1942 (Canberra, 1982), p. 68.
34
0/ the Devi:
Adivasi Assertion
ill
Western India
who weren't under Congress control exhorted peasants to rise up

against their landlords. 106 Hindu holy men incited the lower castes. 107
"The non-cooperation movement," stated one newspaper, "has
assumed threatening proportions" 108 A Lieutenant-Governor saw "the
beginning of something like revolution." 109 One newspaper warned
that "a regular civil war" would develop if the rural poor stopped
paying taxes to the landlords.
The most serious revolt took place in Malabar. Khilafat agitators
told the local Muslims, known as Moplahs, that the Raj was collapsing.
Village blacksmiths began hammering out knives, swords, and spears.
Roving bands of Muslim villagers sabotaged rail lines, cut telegraph
wires, blocked roads, burned post offices, and raided police stations. At
the height of the uprising an estimated 10,000 Moplahs waged jungle
warfare against two brigades of British infantry and Special Forces.
The Moplah Revolt epitomized the danger of inciting mobs with
demagogic, religious appeals. The Muslims were mainly poor farmers,
while the landlords and moneylenders were Hindus. Muslim mobs looted
their mansions and destroyed hundreds of Hindu temples. Thousands
of terrified Hindus fled to the coastal areas for safety. One Moplah
leader warned, "We shall give Hindus the option of death or Islam." 110
106
William F. Crawley, "Kisan Sabhas and Agrarian Revolt in the United Provinces
1920 to 1921," Modern Asian Studies, vol. 5, no. 2 (1971), pp. 104-05; Arvind N.
Das, "Peasants and Peasant Organisations: The Kisan Sabha in Bihar," in Arvind
Das (ed.), Agrarian Movements in India" Studies on 20th Century Bihar (London,
1982), p. 54; Kapil Kumar, "Peasants' Perception of Gandhi and His Programme:
Oudh, 1920-22," Social Scientist (February 1983).
107
Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to
the Modern Age, p. 209; and C.A. Bayly, "Rural Conflict and the Roots of Indian
Nationalism: Allahabad District since 1800," in Paul R. Brass and Francis
Robinson (eds.), The Indian National Congress and Indian Society, 1885-1985:
Ideology, Social Structure, and Political Dominance (Delhi, 1987), p. 229.
108
B.B. Chaudhuri, "Agrarian Movements in Bengal and Bihar, 1919-1939," in B.R.

Nanda (ed.), Socialism in India (New York, 1972), p. 196.
109
K. Kumar, Peasants in Revolt: Tenants, Landlords, Congress and the Raj in Oudh
(New Delhi, 1984), p. 226.
110
Conrad Wood, The Moplah Rebellion and its Genesis (New Delhi, 1987), p. 216.
35
On February 4, 1922 the police opened fire on peasants protesting

peacefully in Chauri-Chaura, a little village in the United Provinces.
An enraged mob torched the station and slaughtered the constables who
fled the inferno. Gandhi was horrified. III He demanded an immediate
halt to Non-Cooperation and summoned the Congress Working
Committee for an emergency session at Bardoli. The Congess leaders
deplored "the inhuman conduct of the mob at Chauri Chaura." 112 They
instructed the local Congress committees "to advise the cultivators to
pay the land revenue and other taxes due to the government." The
resolution pointedly stated: "The Working Committee assures the
zemindars that the Congress movement is in no way intended to attack
their legal rights."
Lenin vs. Roy: The Verdict
When he read the news, M.N. Roy grasped the significance. "The
interests of the propertied class must have first consideration: British
rule may be 'Satanic', but landlordism is sacred." 113 Just as he had
predicted, the Indian bourgeoisie was "incapable, even unwilling, to
push the Indian nationalist movement ahead towards revolution." 114
The Congress decision proved that "The liberal bourgeoisie, which
stands at the head of the national democratic movement, will not play
the revolutionary role which the European bourgeoisie played in the
18 th and 19 th centuries.... The preconditions for a pure bourgeoisdemocratic revolution do not exist in India." 115
III
M. Gandhi, "The Crime of Chauri Chaura" (16 February 1922), in The Collected
Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vo\. 22, p. 419.
112
M. Gandhi, "Working Committee's Resolutions at Bardoli" (12 February 1922), in

The Collected Works ofMahatma Gandhi, vo\. 22, p. 378.
113
M.N. Roy, "Confusion in the Congress" (15 August 1922), reprinted in Sibnarayan
Ray (ed.), Selected Works ofM.N. Roy, vo\. 1, p. 537.
114
M.N. Roy, "Confusion in the Congress," p. 540.
115
M. N. Roy, Preface to German edition of India in Transition, reprinted in

G Adhikari(ed.), Documents of the History of the Communist Party of India.
Volume One, 1917-1922 (Bombay, 1971), p. 364.
36
Roy rejected a "Menshevik" model for India. 116 "India's freedom

will be attained through the efforts of the workers and pauperized
peasantry who will go boldly into the struggle, because they have
nothing to risk, but everything to gain." 117 But he stopped short of
predicting just how far and fast the revolution might unfold. "Whether
the democratic revolution can be quickly transformed into a Socialist
Revolution (as in Russia) remains an open question depending on the
class-relations in the particular society and on the political maturity of
the proletariat. What is conclusive is that on the failure of the
bourgeoisie to lead the democratic revolution, the proletariat becomes
the leaven of the democratic movement, and will exercise the
hegemony in the struggle for democratic freedom." 118
At the Second Congress Lenin had insisted that the bourgeoisie of
Asia still had a revolutionary role to play in world history. As we have
seen, that was the conception he had formed in the period before WWI,
when he was still a left ~ocial democrat. Events proved him wrong. The
Asian bourgeoisie weren't the budding "revolutionary democrats" he
116
In the late nineteenth century the Russian Social Democrats all agreed that Czarist
Russia faced a belated bourgeois-democratic revolution. The Mensheviks held that
since the revolution was bourgeois in character, the liberal bourgeoisie would have
to lead. The Bolsheviks countered that the Russian bourgeoisie was too weak and
vested in the old order to carry out a radical democratic revolution. Lenin posed
the working class as the driving force. However, given the huge preponderance of
the peasantry, he believed that the working class would have to shate power with
the peasantry for a certain transitional period, which he called the "democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry." Trotsky, who stood outside both
factions, projected a third alternative, which he called the "permanent revolution."
He agreed with Lenin on the need for the worker-peasant alliance. However, he
denied that a two-class dictatorship (worker and peasant) was feasible. The
democratic revolution would result in a workers government, supported by the poor
peasantry. And that government would be forced by the class struggle which
brought it to power to carry out socialist tasks. In other words, the bourgeois
revolution would "grow over" into the socialist revolution without interruption.
117
M.N. Roy, "Danger Ahead" (15 June 1922), reprinted in S. Ray (ed.), Selected
Works of M.N. Roy, vol. I, p. 394.
118
M.N. Roy, "The Future of Indian Politics" (1926), reprinted in S. Ray (ed.),
Selected Works ofM.N. Roy. vol. 2, pp. 517-18.
had imagined. Gandhi defended the landlords against the peasants. The
progressive Turk, Mustapha Kemal, took Russian aid and then
suppressed the Communist Party in 1922. The heirs of Sun Yat Sen
would soon do much worse.
At the next Comintern Congress Roy diplomatically implied that
the Comintern line was wrong. After reviewing recent events in India,
Turkey, and Egypt, he concluded: "although the bourgeoisie and the
feudal military clique in one or other of these countries can assume the
leadership of the nationalist revolutionary struggle, there comes a time
when these people are bound to betray the movement and become a
counter-revolutionary force." 119 He was, of course, absolutely right.
From the United Front to the People's Party
In 1918 the Bolsheviks expected their revolution to spread quickly. But

one uprising after another went down in costly defeat. The German
Communist Party, which the Bolsheviks regarded as their salvation,
wasted itself in failed insurrections. 120 Lenin exhorted the Communist
parties to cool down, gather more support, and form united fronts with
the Social Democrats and other left-wing parties to defend the working
class as a whole.
At the Third Congress of the Comintern (1921) Karl Radek, the
secretary of the Executive Committee (ECCI), advanced the united
front tactic: "Comintern tactics must emphasize organization and
119
120
38
N.M. Roy, "Report on the Eastern Question" (1922), reprinted in S. Ray (ed.), In
Freedom's Quest: Life o/M.N. Roy, vo!. 1 (Calcutta, 1998), pp. 478-79.
In early 1921, as inflation and unemployment soared, there were violent strikes in
Gennany. The government security chief, a Social Democrat, sent police to occupy
the mining district of Mansfeld, where strikers were fighting the local police. The
Gennan Communist Party (KPD) appealed for resistance: "Every worker should
defy the law and take anns where he can find them." The strike spread, workers
seized their factories, and there was fighting throughout the district. On March 24
the KPD called for a general strike. The Social Democrats and their trade unions
denounced the attempted "rising. " The KPD rescinded the strike order a week later.
The damage to the KPD was severe. As a result of the putschist policy, the party lost
several leaders and a hundred thousand members, including many trade union cadres.
agitation rather than preparation for civil war." 121 Although the focus
was on Europe, Radek thought the tactic could also be applied in Asia.
The Comintern representative in China, Maring, wanted the
Communist Party (CCP) to join Sun Vat Sen's nationalist-populist
party, the Kuomintang. The CCP leaders, who sized up Sun better than
Maring, resisted that proposal. Radek, however, worried that the CCP
might indulge in the same putschism that had cost the German party so
dearly. He backed Maring, and in 1922 the CCP reluctantly joined the
Kuomintang. 122
Up to that point the Bolsheviks had defined the united front as an
episodic alliance between separate organizations for a specific
purpose. Or in Lenin's famous slogan: "March separately, strike
together." The Communist-Kuomintang merger broadened that concept
considerably. At the Fourth Congress of the Comintern (1922) Radek
and Roy downplayed the significance of the new policy. Radek
mentioned the "people's party" only at the end of his speech, as an
afterthought. 123 M.N. Roy, after emphasizing the need to "develop our
parties in these countries," added, rather ambiguously, that only "a
political party representing the workers and peasants" could ensure the
"final victory." 124
121
Quoted in Jim Tuck, Engine of Mischief An Analytical Biography of Karl Radek

(New York, 1988), p. 62.
122
For the genesis of the Communist-Kuomintang alliance see Alexander Pantsov, The
Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution 1919-1927 (Honolulu, 2000), pp. 45-69;
Tony Saich, "Interpreting China: The Case of Maring," in Kurt Werner Radtke and
Tony Saich (eds.), China 50 Modernisation: Westernisation and Acculturation
(Stuttgart, 1993), pp. 59-82; and Hans J. Yan de Yen, From Friend to Comrade:
The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party. 1920-1927 (Berkeley, 1991),
pp. 99-108.
12l
"One more thing: In this work, after we have rallied the workers around us, you
must go to the peasants and to the artisans, and you must become not only the
nucleus of the future workers party, but also of the future people's party." Cited in
M.N. Roy, "Eastern Question in the World Communist Congress" (I January
1923), reprinted in Sibnarayan Ray (ed.), In Freedom 50 Quest: Life of M.N. Roy.
vo!. I, p. 472.
124
M.N. Roy, "Report on the Eastern Question," pp. 479 and 481.
39
The Trotskyist Movement in India and eeylon
After the Fourth Congress Roy pursued the People's Party strategy
for India. He wrote article after article, and ultimately a whole book,
on how to transform the Congress into "a democratic party of the
people with a programme of Revolutionary Nationalism." 125 He began
to portray the capture of Congress as a necessary stage: "The capture
of the Congress by a mass party will have to take place before the goal
of national independence can be reached." 126
In 1923 the Communist movement suffered its biggest setback yet.
The German Communist Party botched what might have been a
revolutionary situation. 127 The Fifth Comintern Congress (1924) met
under the shadow of that defeat. The question of the united front in Europe
took on even greater urgency. In his speech on the colonial question Roy
implicitly repudiated his earlier position that Bolshevik parties were
possible and indispensable in the East. "As in most colonial and semicolonial countries capitalism is not fully developed, it would be
romantic to speak of a purely proletarian movement or a purely
proletarian party; there are, however, in these countries throngs of
peasants who are potentially the most revolutionary factor ... This requires
the application of the united-front tactics on a far broader basis." 128
125
M.N. Roy, "The Future of Indian Politics," pp. 531.
126
M.N. Roy, "What is a Programme?" (October 1922), reprinted in S. Ray (ed.), In

Freedom s Quest: Life of M.N. Ray, vo!. 1, p. 450.
127
In January 1923 the British and French occupied the Ruhr, provoking mass protests
that destabilized the already wobbly Weimar Republic. The Comintern Executive
called upon the Germany party to form a United Front to get a majority of the
workers. In August, after a general strike toppled the Cuno government, Trotsky
asked the Bolshevik Politburo to approve an insurrection in Germany. The German
Communist leaders were divided. Zinoviev, the Comintern chief, arbitrarily set the
date for the uprising in October, to coincide with the anniversary celebrations of
the October Revolution in the USSR. The result was a fiasco. See Mike Jones, "The
Decline, Disorientation, and Decomposition of a Leadership. The German
Communist Party: From Revolutionary Marxism to Centrism," Revolutionary
History, vo!. 2, no. 3 (Autumn 1989), pp. 1-19; and Mike Jones, "Germany 1923:
The Communist Party of Germany and the Role of the Communist International,"
Revolutionary History, vo1. 5, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 107-29.
128
M.N. Roy, "On the National and Colonial Question" (1 July 1924), reprinted in S.
Ray (ed.), In Freedom s Quest: Life of M.N. Roy, vo!. 2, pp. 293-94.
40
The Trotskyist Movement in Illdia and Ceylon
Roy was beginning to toy with the idea that other classes could be
pressured to start the revolution. "We must mobilize the workers and
peasants and lead this organized revolutionary army to support the national
middle class in its struggle against imperialism ... Our tactics must force
the indigenous bourgeoisie to put forth increased demands and to make
greater inroads into the sphere of power ofImperialism. In a word we must
prevent the fight for independence from being sacrificed on the altar of
compromise between the native middle class and the imperialists." 129
He was not alone in this wishful thinking. From 1923 on, the
Comintern Executive pursued precisely that policy in China. The
Comintern representative, Mikhail Borodin (who perished in a Stalinist
gulag in 1951), pushed the Chinese Communists deeper and deeper into
the Kuomintang.
Revolution in China
In June 1925 British and French troops opened fire on a student

demonstration in China. The workers of Canton and Hong Kong
responded with a strike that lasted for over a year and paralyzed foreign
commerce. In Canton the nationalists cleared out the opium dens,
closed down gambling joints, and improvised an embryonic soviet. The
ferment spread into the countryside. With a revolution brewing on their
Eastern border the Bolsheviks could no longer afford abstract and
ambiguous theses on Asia.
The Communist-Kuomintang alliance seemed to be working well.
The Communists held key positions in the Kuomintang. Their ranks
and influence were growing by leaps and bounds. The Kuomintang
Lefts looked like solid allies. In early 1926 a Kuomintang
representative declared before the Comintern Executive, "On basic
questions the teachings of our great leader Sun Yat Sen concur with
Marxism and Leninism." 130 The Kuomintang asked to join the Comintern.
129
M.N. Roy, "On the National and ,?olonial Question," pp. 301 and 305.
130
Quoted in Alexander PantsoY, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution 19191927. p. 90.
41
The pragmatic Stalin believed that the Communists, if they played

their cards right, could capture the Kuomintang. Like his friend M.N.
Roy, Stalin thought that was the necessary next stage in China. Stalin
blessed the ECCI decision to make Chiang Kai Shek an honorary
member. On the other side Trotsky worried that the Chinese
Communists were in a trap. In the Politburo he voted against the
motion to admit the Kuomintang to the Comintern as a sympathizing
section. By 1926 he was convinced that the CCP should withdraw from
the Kuomintang as soon as possible.
Neo-Menshevism
Nikolai Bukharin, who was the brains behind Stalin at that time,
concocted the theory of "two-stage revolution" to rationalize the
conciliatory line in China. Bukharin argued (contrary to what Marx had
written on the subject) that Chinese society was predominantly feudal.
131 Therefore, the Communists had to remain embedded within the
Kuomintang to carry out the "anti-feudal" stage of the revolution. Only
after the Kuomintang had vanquished the warlords, expelled the
foreign interests, and delivered the peasantry from feudal oppression
could the CCP begin the second stage, the fight for socialism.
Trotsky criticized this policy as warmed-over Menshevism. He
pointed out that the Mensheviks had made the same mechanistic
arguments against the Bolsheviks with regards to the Russian
revolution. That criticism had a sting; the two leading Stalinist experts
on China-Martynov and Rafes-were both former Mensheviks.
Moreover, the Mensheviks themselves, in their emigre newspaper,
praised Martynov for analyzing the Chinese situation in such a
"Menshevik manner." 132 Trotsky demanded that the CCP begin to
organize peasant soviets and fight for 3,n agrarian revolution.
131
Cited in Alexander Pantsov, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution 19191927, p. 135.
132
Feodor Dan, "Tuchi s vostoka" [Clouds Out ofthe East], Sotsialistichesldi Vestnik,
no. 8 (23 April 1927), p. 4.
42
The Comintern Executive, following the Stalin-Bukharin line,

instructed the Soviet agents in China (who now included M.N. Roy) to
press ahead with the "Communization" of the Kuomintang. But Chiang
Kai-Shek was no fool. He was not going to let Moscow steal his party.
On March 20, 1926 he carried out an anti-Communist coup in Canton.
He arrested the commissars attached to his troops, put the Soviet
advisors under house arrest, disarmed the strike committee, and
dispersed the League of Chinese Military Youth and other Communistcontrolled organizations.
The March coup was a blow to the Stalin-Bukharin policy. The
Chinese Communists wanted to strike back. But Stalin told the CCP to
placate the Kuomintang. 133 In April, 1926 the Politburo majority
rejected Trotsky's motion for the CCP to exit the Kuomintang. The
ECCI hastily patched up the fragile relationship with Chiang Kai-Shek.
The Stalinist majority kept the party in the dark about what really
happening in China; Bukharin, the editor of Pravda, censored news
that was unfavorable to the official policy.
Trotsky, however, had his own listening post in the person of Karl
Radek, who was rector of the Sun Yat Sen University in Moscow.
Radek had sent an agent to China to investigate and he returned with
an alarming report. In March, 1927 at a debate in the Communist
Academy Radek warned that Chiang Kai Shek would soon betray. 134
Stalin ridiculed the warnings. At a party meeting in Moscow he assured
the comrades that Chiang "is leading the army and cannot do otherwise
than lead it against the imperialists." He boasted that the Chinese
Communists would use Chiang and then toss him aside like a
"squeezed lemon." 135 Ten days later Chiang, in collusion with the
!3J
Conrad Brandt, Stalin 50 Failure in China, 1924-1927 (New York, 1958), p. 78.
134
Warren Lemer, Karl Radek The Last Internationalist (Stanford, 1970), p. 143.
135
Given what happened a week later, the Opposition demanded that this speech be
published. The Stalin faction refused. At the Eighth plenum of the ECCI, which
met in May 1927, the Serbian Communist Vujo Vujovic confronted Stalin with his
own words, which Vujovic had written down in his own notes at the time. Stalin
did not deny that he had made the speech and used those words. But he still refused
to let the speech be published. Alexander PantsoY, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese
Revolution 1919-1927, p. 241, footnote 31.
43
foreign diplomats in Shanghai, massacred thousands of Communists

and labor militants who had taken over the city.
Trotsky and the "Permanent Revolution"
In 1905 Trotsky formulated his theory of the future Russian revolution,

which he called the "Permanent Revolution." Trotsky based his theory
on the "peculiarities" of Russia's historical development. He did not
apply the thesis to any other country, either before the October
revolution or for the next ten years. 136 In the recurring debates on the
colonial question in the Comintern during 1920-22, Trotsky did not
make any original contribution. He tended to back the leftist Roy (as
did Stalin at that point).
In 1923 Trotsky and forty-six prominent Bolsheviks formed the
Left Opposition to fight the growing bureaucratism in the state
apparatus and wobbles in the party line. The Opposition made its stand
on a series of issues. None had to do directly with colonial matters.
Trotsky began to focus on Asia only after the red glow of revolution
appeared on the distant border with China.
As noted above, Karl Radek was the Opposition's main China
expert. Initially, Radek thought the Chinese Communists should remain
within the Kuomintang, since the Chinese working class was not strong
enough to seize power "at the present, and in the near future." 137
However, the more he studied China, his thinking changed. Though
"feudal remnants" existed in China, capitalism was dominant. 138
Therefore, the struggle of the peasantry "will not be directed against
136
Curtis Stokes, The Evolution of Trotsky s Theory of Revolution (Washington DC,

1982), pp. 133ff.
IJ7
Warren Lemer, Karl Radek The Last Internationalist, p. 136.
138
Karl Radek, "'Izmena' Kitaiskoi krupnoi burzhuazii natsional'nomu dvizheniiu"

[The Infidelity of the Chinese Big Bourgeoisie to the National Movement], 1927,
pp. 42-43. Radek evidently circulated this document within the United Opposition.
There is a copy in the Boris I. Nicolaevsky Collection at the Hoover Archives, Box
797, folder 2.
44
The Trotskyist Movement ill India and Ceylon
two classes, but only against one, the bourgeoisie." That was a frontal
attack on the "two-stage revolution" theory.
Trotsky took this insight a step farther: "there is almost no class of
landowners in China, the landowners are much more intimately bound
up with the capitalists than in czarist Russia, the specific weight of the
agrarian question in China is therefore much lighter than in czarist
Russia; but for that, the question of national liberation occupies a large
place. Accordingly, the capacity of the Chinese peasantry for
independent revolutionary political struggle for the democratic
renovation of the country can in no case be greater than was the
Russian peasantry's." 139 In other words, since no radical peasant party
had emerged in China, the Communists would not be compelled to
share power in the first stage of the revolution. In April, 1927 Trotsky
posited for the first time "the possibility of the democratic revolution
growing over into the socialist revolution" in China, provided the CCP
could wrest free of the Kuomintang and mobilize the peasantry. 140
In response Stalin stated that Radek had made a "grave error" in
denying that feudalism was dominant in China. 141 But Radek had Marx
on his side. David Riazanov, the director of the Marx-Engels Institute,
had recently published the long-lost Marx articles on India and China,
in which Marx stated that these countries had not been feudal. At that
point in the power struggle, however, this revelation carried little
weight, if it was even noticed at all.
Though events in China had vindicated the Opposition, Stalin was
master of the party apparatus. On the eve of the fifthteeth party
congress Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled. Eventually Zinoviev,
Kamenev, and Radek capitulated and were re-admitted to the party. It
139
Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution (New York, 1931), p. 114.
140
Leon Trotsky, "Class Relations in the Chinese Revolution" (3 April 1927),

reprinted in Les Evans and Russell Block (eds.), Lean Trotsky on China (New York,
1976), p. 142.
141
lV Stalin, "Talk with Students of the Sun Yat-Sen University" (13 May 1927), in
On the Opposition (Peking, 1974), p. 668.
45
only postponed their fate; in 1938 all three were executed after the
notorious Moscow frame-up trials. Trotsky remained intransigent. He
was banished to remote Alma Ata, in Kazakhstan. Oppositionists were
expelled, fired from their jobs, and sent to Siberia by the thousands.
Stalin and Bukharin foisted the blame for the debacle in China on
others (the Chinese Communist leaders, M.N. Roy, etc.), while
insisting that their policy had been correct. Bukharin wrote the "twostage revolution thesis" into the program of the Communist
International, adopted at the Sixth Congress in 1928. That Congress
also made the "survival of feudal remnants" thesis into a dogma. That
created a problem for Soviet scholars who were debating the Marx
articles on India and China. In 1930 M.S. Godes warned his academic
colleagues: "the denial of feudalism in China, or the theory of it,
always leads to political errors, and errors of an essentially Trotskyist
order." 142 That was enough to silence most. 143 But Riazanov, the
director of the Marx-Engels Institute, was much too honest to falsify
Marxist doctrine. In 1931 Stalin had him arrested and exiled to the
forced labor camp at Saratov, where he perished during the Purges, as
did other historians who dared to defend Marx. 144
142
Stephen P. Dunn, The Fall and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production (London,
1982), p. 32.
143
The British Stalinist theoretician, R. Palme Dutt, was put on the spot. In 1925 he
had published the Marx articles on India and China in his Labour Monthly. Later
that year Dutt, translated the two key articles on India from the Gemlan journal and
published them in Labour Monthly, noting that the articles "were recently rediscovered by Mr. Riasanov." Karl Marx, "India under British Rule," Labour
Monthly, vol. 7, no. 12 (December 1925), pp. 717-28. As always, Dutt toed the
Moscow line. He explained that Marx really envisioned the Asiatic mode of
production as "an Oriental form of Feudalism." R.P. Dutt (ed.), Karl Marx: Articles
on India (Bombay, 1943), p. 67.
144
46
Liudvig I. Mad'iar, a leading proponent of the "Asiatic mode of production" in the

Soviet debates of 1925-31 was purged in 1934 and perished in the Stalinist Purges.
See Marian Sawer, Marxism and the Question of the Asiatic Mode of Production
(The Hague, 1977), photo caption on back cover.
The Big Leap
In 1929 Trotsky published his landmark book, The Permanent

Revolution, in which he set forth his program for colonial countries like
India. "The theory of the permanent revolution ... pointed out that the
democratic tasks of the backward bourgeois nations lead directly, in our
epoch, to the dictatorship of the proletariat and that the dictatorship of
the proletariat puts socialist tasks on the order of the day." 145 In other
words Trotsky concluded that his theory originally derived from the
"special case" of Russia in fact had a generalized validity for all
countries of belated capitalist development.
In 1930 Trotsky argued that the prospects for socialism in India were
more promising and likely than they had been in Russia in 1905 or 1917.
"If today the Indian proletariat is numerically smaller than the Russian,
this in itself does not mean that its revolutionary possibilities are not as
great... On the contrary, all the social peculiarities that made the
October Revolution possible and inevitable exist in India in a more
acute form. In this country of poor peasants, the hegemony of the city is
no less established than in Czarist Russia. The concentration of industrial,
commercial, and banking power in the hands of the big bourgeoisie,
primarily the foreign bourgeoisie, on the one hand, _and the swift growth
of an industrial proletariat on the other, exclude the possibility of the
independent role of the urban petty bourgeoisie and, to a certain extent,
even of the intellectual. This transforms the political mechanics of the
revolution into a struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie
for the leadership of the peasant masses. There is 'only' one condition
missing: a Bolshevik party. And this is where the problem lies now." 146
That is a bold string of assumptions. Yet Trotsky was convinced
that further analysis of the Indian situation would confirm his analogy.
Trotsky keenly followed events in India. But he did not return to the
question in any depth. It was up to his followers to apply the theory to the
specifics of India. And ultimately only history could deliver the verdict.
145
Leon Trotsky, introduction to the Russian edition of Permanent Revolution (1929).
146
Leon Trotsky, "The Revolution in India, Its Tasks and Dangers," reprinted in
Writings of Leon Trotsky [1930} (New York, 1975), pp. 245-46.
CHAPTER TWO
The Pioneers
If anyone person could be said to have pioneered the Trotskyist
movement in South Asia, it would surely be Philip Gunawardena. He
has been called "the father of socialism" in Sri Lanka, the driving force
behind the formation and spectacular growth of the Lanka Sama
Samaja Party (LSSP), one of those few Trotskyist parties to ever
achieve a mass following for a long period of time. I That alone would
secure his place in history. Yet what is not so widely known is that
Philip Gunawardena also played a significant role in the Indian
Trotskyist movement. So we begin this book with him.
Don Philip Rupasinghe Gunawardena was a son of the soil. 2 His
ancestors had resisted the Portuguese colonialists, and his father, a
prosperous landowner, taught his children to be proud Sinhalese patriots.
Philip matured at an exciting time. The Non-Cooperation movement in
India was in full swing. Philip had no desire to go to university in
England and become another brown sahib. He decided to study in
America, build the family's business, and the British be damned.
In 1922 he enrolled at the University of Illinois in UrbanaChampaign, a state agricultural school in the American heartland. After
two years he transferred to the more progressive University of
Wisconsin at Madison. That turned out to be the turning point in his
There are several landmark studies devoted to the LSSP: George J. Lerski, Origins
of Trotskyism in Ceylon (Stanford, 1968); Y. Ranjith Amarasinghe, Revolutiol1G1Y
Idealism and Parliamentary Politics: A Study of Trotskyism in Sri Lanka
(Colombo, 1998); and AI Richardson (ed.), Blows Against the Empire: Trotskyism
in Ceylon (London, 1997).
The material on Philip Gunawardena in this chapter is drawn from my two
biographical studies: Charles W. Ervin, Philip Gunawardena: The Making of a
Revolutionary (Colombo, 2001) and Pilip Gunavardhana: Viplavavadiyakuge
Hadagasma (Colombo, 2005).
48
life. At Madison he bonded with an Indian chemistry student,

Jayaprakash Narayan, the future leader of the Congress Socialist
Party.3 The two discussed politics and devoured Marxist books.
Another classmate, Avrom Landy, introduced them to members of the
Communist party. 4 Philip had found his calling.
In 1925 Philip moved to New York City and enrolled at Columbia
University for his graduate studies. Radicalism was in the air, and
Philip breathed deeply. It didn't take him long to make connections
with the Indian nationalists in New York City. In 1927 he joined the
League Against Imperialism, a Comintern front group which had just
been formed. 5 Philip worked with the Mexican nationalist, Jose
Vasconcelos, who had been connected with the Mexican Communist
Party in the 'twenties. 6 He learned Spanish well enough to translate
League pamphlets.
Jayaprakash Narayan (1902-1979) was born in a little Bihar village, worked his
way through college in the USA, returned to India in 1929, and formed the
Congress Socialist Party in 1934. During the Quit India struggle he organized
guerrilla groups to harass the British. After Independence he lost faith in Marxism
and joined the neo-Gandhian Sarvodaya movement. He was jailed in the 'seventies
for protesting Indira Gandhi's "Emergency."
Avrom Mendel Landy (1904-1992) was raised in Cleveland, earned a BA from
Ohio State University and an MA from Madison. Abandoning a promising
academic career, Avrom and his wife, Goldie, moved to New York City, where he
became City Editor for the Daily Worker and Educational Director for the
Communist Party. He published Marxism and the Woman Question (1943) and
Marxism and the Democratic Tradition (1946). He quit the Communist Party in
1947.
In 1926 Willi Miinzenberg, an important German Communist wheeler-dealer and
agitprop czar, staged a conference against colonial oppression in Brussels, which
attracted such luminaries as Jawaharlal Nehru and Chiang Kai-shek. The Brussels
conference led to the formation of the League Against Imperialism in 1927. The
old Indian revolutionary, Virendranath ChaUopadhyaya, became the general
secretary. Munzenberg duped the likes of Albert Einstein, Henri Barbusse, and
Upton Sinc1air to adorn the Executive Committee.
Jose Vasconcelos Calderon (1882-1959) headed the Secretariat of Public Education
after the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17. He created a public primary school
system, presided over the National University, and patronized leftwing artists, such
as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He taught for a while at the University
49
In 1928, after finishing at Columbia, Philip went to England. He

made a beeline to the British Communist party (CPGB). Philip tried to
be covert, but Scotland Yard wasn't fooled. The police had spies
aplenty. The government was watching him closely. 7
The Stalinization of British Communism
In the early 1920s the Comintern Executive relied on M.N. Roy to

develop, from afar, Communist cadres in India. Roy developed his own
network of resources in Mosow, Berlin, and Paris. He often complained
that the Communist parties weren't paying enough attention to colonial
questions. In 1924 the Fifth Congress of the Comintern resolved that
there should be "very close contact between the sections in the
imperialist countries with the colonies of those countries."
In early 1925 the CPGB formed a Colonial Committee to focus on
this work. The Indian Communist Shapurji Saklatvala played a key
role, as did Clemens Dutt and his brother, R. Palme Dutt, the editor of
Labour Monthly. Palme Dutt established his own credentials as a
leading Communist theoretician and interpreter of Indian affairs. In
1926 he published Modern India, which updated and in some ways
improved upon M.N. Roy's India in Transition (1923).
Palme Dutt played a key role in the StaIinization of the CPGB. He
was a brilliant intellectual in a party with more than its fair share of
plodding leaders. He was also well-connected, via his wife, to the
upper echelons of the Comintern apparatus in Berlin and Moscow. Dutt
of Chicago and in 1926 attended the Brussels congress that led to the League
Against Imperialism. He was defeated in the 1929 Mexican presidential election
and forced into exile. Later he became an ardent Roman Catholic, a critic of
democracy, and a zealous supporter of Spanish tradition.
The Indian Political Intelligence (IPI), formed in 1921, was a special agency
responsible for keeping tabs on known and suspected troublemakers in England,
Europe, and America. The IPI reported to the Secretary of the Public and Judicial
Department of the India Office and the Director of Intelligence Bureau (DlB) in
India. The IPI worked hand in glove with Scotland Yard and MI5. The IPI
maintained a dossier on Philip Gunawardena. IOL: LlPJ/12/409.
50
always bet on the winning horse. He used the pages:of Labour Monthly
to explain, and justify, whatever the ruling clique lriMoscow said and
did. When Zinoviev opened his attack on Trotsky in 1923-24, Dutt
joined the smear campaign; Labour Monthly printed article after article
on the "errors" of the Opposition. Dutt, however, was a lot more
sophisticated than most of the hacks.
By the time Phi lip joined, the CPGB was already poisoned against
Trotsky and the Opposition. The Dutt brothers quickly recognized that
Philip was a good catch and took him under their wings. They co-opted
him into the Colonial Committee and gave him important assignments
in the League Against Imperialism and the Indian Bureau, a
subcommittee that worked with student contacts .and recruits in the
various universities. Patronized by the top brass, Philip rose quickly.
He was put on the staff of the Daily Worker. He took over the Workers
Welfare League of India, an organization founded by Saklatvala in
1917. And he became a trusted courier, making frequent trips to Paris,
Brussels, and Berlin to deliver party documents to high Communist
officials. 8 He certainly must have known more about all the behindthe-scenes struggles and intrigues in the Comintern than most British
party members.
The Ultra-Left Binge
When Philip joined the CPGB, the party was beginning its lurch to the
left, following the new line introduced at the Sixth Congress of the
Comintern (1928). Most historians agree with Trotsky that the sharp
left turn was motivated by the factional struggle in JV1oscow. Under fire
from the Opposition, Stalin had to find scapegoats for the debacle in
China. He blamed Bukharin, M.N. Roy, and the Chinese Communists
who had carried out his orders. Stalin took up a posItion that seemed
more left than that of the Opposition. He sounded the bugle for a
revolutionary offensive everywhere.
IOL: LlPJ/12/409, folio 17.
Trotsky criticized the flip-flop as an irresponsible and reckless

attempt to stampede the working class into a revolution. But Stalin had
state power and he could roar a lot louder. Moreover, a lot of
Communists, including Philip Gunawardena, liked the militant "class
against class" line. After years of ambiguous resolutions, the
Comintern Executive at last characterized the Congress as "the party of
the Indian bourgeoisie." 9 The Comintern belatedly criticized the Indian
Communists for building two-class parties (the Workers and Peasants
Parties) while neglecting to build their own party-criticisms that
Trotsky had been making for the last several years. 10
Stalin claimed that the Socialists and Fascists were "twins" (this
was his infamous thesis of "social fascism"). But since the Socialists
could still dupe the workers, they were more dangerous. Dutifully
following this line, the CPGB snarled at the Labour leaders, who in return
excluded Communists from the mass organization of the British working
class. The Stalinists spit invective at Gandhi, calling the brave old man
In the 1920s M.N. Roy described the Indian National Congress as a "political
movement," rather than a political party, in which various caucuses jostled one
another for influence and power. In his view the early Congress was simply a
"bourgeois platform." However, during the Non-Cooperation movement the
Congress was transformed into "a gigantic mass organization focusing the
revolutionary will of the entire people." M.N. Roy, "The Indian National Congress"
(13 January 1927), in S. Ray (ed.), Selected Works ofM.N. Roy, vo!. 2, pp. 560-61.
Roy held open the possibility that the. Communists could capture the Congress and
transform it into a revolutionary of!~ailjzation.
10
52
In his critique of the Comintern Program (1928) Trotsky devoted an entire chapter
to ripping apart the Stalin-Bukharin theory of two-class parties. L.D. Trotsky, The
Draft Program of the Communist International: A Criticism of Fundamentals
(New York, 1929), pp. 123-34. He thought the Comintern line had sterilized the
Indian party: "It is doubtful if greater harn1 could be done to the Indian proletariat
than was done by Zinoviev, Stalin, and Bukharin through the medium of Roy. In
India, as in China, the work has been and is oriented almost totally toward
bourgeois nationalism." L. Trotsky, "Who is Leading the Comintern Today?"
(September 1928), in The Challenge of the Left Opposition 1928-29 (New York,
1981), p. 200. Trotsky recognized, belatedly, that the Opposition should have
fought this line much earlier, during 1923-25, when it was being formulated and
implemented experimentally. Leon Trotsky, "The Opposition's Errors-Real and
Alleged" (23 May 1928), in The Challenge of the Left Opposition 1928-29, p. 90.
an "imperialist stooge." The Comintern warned that Subhas Bose and

Jawaharlal Nehru were "assistants of British imperialism" who formed
the Independence for India League as a "fascist manouever." 11
Phi lip Gunawardena got tipsy on the strong rhetoric dished out by
Saklatvala and the Dutts. He wrote overheated articles for the Daily
Worker that portrayed the violent strikes and riots in India as harbingers
of revolution. He described the Communist Party ofIndia, which in fact
was in pitiful disarray, as the "vanguard of the Indian proletariat." He
lived the fantasy. He became part of a squad of hotheads who were sent
to disrupt meetings of opponents (which meant everyone who didn't
fully agree with the CommunIst line). On more than one occasion his
outbursts led to fist fights.
If such antics were farcical, the real tragedy was playing out in
Germany. The Nazis, who had been a marginal party just a few years
before, now had more armed men than the German army. As the
elections approached, the Na:?:is brawled in the streets with the
Communists. The leaders ofthe German Communist Party (KPD),
following the Stalin line, foolishly regarded fascism as the lesser evil,
if not a blessing in disguise. 12 From exile Trotsky appealed in vain for
a KPD-Socialist united front to roll back the Nazis. But the Socialists
put their faith in the wobbly Weimar Republic, while the KPD attacked
Socialists, courted "left" storm troopers, and recruited nationalistic
German officers, one of whom gave Hitler the KPD membership list.
The KPD would pay dearly for its stupidity. So would six million
innocent Jews.
11
Quoted in Shashi Joshi, Strugglefor Hegemony in India, 1920-47: The Colonial

State, the Left and the National Movement. Vo!. I: 1920-34 (New Delhi, 1992), pp.
113 and 176-77. See also Sitanshu Das, Subhas: A Political Biography (New Deli,
2000), p. 188.
12
The KPD held that if the fascists took power, they would destroy capitalism and
thereby hasten the red revolution. This view was expressed in their slogan, "After
Hitler - us!" The German Trotskyist Opposition protested: "We consider that the
idea of retreating and so letting the Fascists seize power 'provisionally,' so that we
can strengthen ourselves at its expense, is a betrayal of the proletariat." Quoted in
Oskar Hippe. And Red is the Colour of Our Flag (London, 1991), p. 127.
53
The Trotskyist Movement.in India and Ceylon
Encounter wit., Trotskyists
In the midst of the ultra-left madness Philip encountered two leftwing

critics of Stalinism-Frank Ridley and Hansraj Aggarwala. Both
were active in the League Against Imperialism. Ridley was a brilliant
Marxist intellectual who admired Trotsky and circulated his pamphlets
in the Independent Labour Party (ILP). 13 Aggarwala, a Punjabi from
Amritsar, had come to Britain in 1926 to study law, became active in
student circles, and was elected to the Executive Committee of the
London branch of the Indian National Congress.
In 1929 Ridley and Aggarwala formed the Marxian Propaganda
League. 14 The members sold the American Trotskyist newspaper, The
Militant, and pamphlets by Trotsky on the situation in Germany. The
group sponsored lectures, debates, and open-air meetings on various
topics, including India. Philip began attending in October, 1930. On
several occasions he was a featured speaker. 15 Ridley remembered
Phi lip as a "small, active fellow who was a very good talker." 16
Philip was taking a risk by associating with "Trotskyites."
Aggarwala had alrelldy antagonized the CPGB leaders. 17 The Daily
Worker refused to accept advertisements from the League. 18 To deflect
suspicion Phi lip spread the word that he had broken off relations with
the League. But;
Scotland Yard reported, he discreetly maintained
his connection. Restarted to read books by Trotsky in the British
as
Il
Francis Ambrose Ridley (1897-1994) had studied divinity and wrote extensively
on historical and ecclesiastical subjects. He worked in the ILP as an independent
Marxist. He subsequently rejected Trotskyism and concluded that socialism was
not possible in the colonial world. See Al Richardson, "EA. Ridley (1897-1994):
An Appreciation," Revolutionary History, vo!. 5. No. 3 (1994), pp. 209-10.
14
Sam Bomstein and Al Richardson, Against the Stream: A History of the Trotskyist
Movement in Britain, 1924-38 (London, 1986), pp. 50-60.
15
IOL: LlPJ/12/409, file P&J(S) 17/1930, folio 12.
16
Letter from Ellis Hillman, Revolutionary History (Summer 1988), p. 56.
17
IOL: LlPJ/12/42, file P&J(S) 759/1931.
18
IOL: LlPJ/12/363, file P&J(S) 1729/1930.
54
Museum library. 19 Those visits wouldn't arouse suspicion; many leftwing students from the colonies used to use the British Museum as a
safe place to meet.
The Marxian League wanted to affiliate with the International Left
Opposition, which Trotsky had formed in 1930 to gather together
Opposition groups around the world. But Ridley and Aggarwala didn't
see eye-to-eye with Trotsky on several important issues, such as the
need to reform the Comintern and to fight fascism with a CommunistSocialist united front. 20 They regarded fascism as inevitable and
wanted Trotsky to form a new.International forthwith. 21 The ILO
Secretariat in Paris unanimously rejected these positions. 22 Trotsky
wrote that it would be "very sad" if British Communists thought the
Left Opposition stood for the views of Ridley and Aggarwala. 23
Ridley was too much the maverick to submit to discipline from
Paris or Prinkipo. He washed his hands of the Opposition. Philip
Gunwardena, on the other hand, solidarized with Trotsky. In 1932 he
decided to make the long journey to Prinkipo to meet the great man in
person. 24 He purchased a ticket on the Orient Express. When the train
reached Sofia, he got down to stretch his legs. Suddenly, he was face to
face with a British police officer. He had been trailed, and the game
was up.
19
10L: LlPJ/12/409, file P&J(S) 17/1930, folio 13.
20
F.A. Ridley and H.R. Aggarwala, "Theses on the British Situation, the Left
Opposition, and the Comintern," 23 October 1931. Harvard: Trotsky Papers,
document number 15845. This document is sometimes referred to as the "RidleyRam Thesis," since Aggarwala used
pseudonym "Chandu Ram."
21
F.A. Ridley, "Marxism, History and a Fourth International," reprinted in

Revolutionary History, vol. 5. No. 3 (1994), pp. 211-16.
22
Letter from Glotzer to Reg Groves, 27 October 1931, in the Albert Glotzer Papers
at the Hoover Archives (Box 2).
the
23
24
Leon Trotsky, "The Tasks ofthe Left Opposition in Britain and India" (7 November
1931), in Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1930-31 (New York, 1973), p. 337.
Lakmali Gunawardena, Philip: The Early Years (Boralugoda [Sri Lanka], 1996), p.
16-17.
55
Excommunication
Back in London Philip continued to carry out his party assignments.

Inside the party, however, he was a cautious critic. He evidently
expressed doubts about the Comintern's line on China. That was all it
took in those days to set alarms ringing at party headquarters. Clemens
Dutt wrote Phi lip a letter (intercepted as usual by the police) suggesting
that he elaborate upon his "interesting views." 25 That was an invitation
to political suicide. Philip temporized.
The showdown came in May, 1932, at the British conference of
the League Against Imperialism. Harry Pollitt, the general secretary of
the CPGB, introduced the main resolutions. In the discussion period
Philip and others raised "heated protests." 26 Philip introduced a counterresolution on India. "The discussion which followed," the Daily
Worker subsequently reported, "showed that there was something much
deeper in the minds of some comrades than a mere argument over words."
The cat was out of the bag. The British Communist leaders
discovered that Philip Gunawardena "was secretly a Trotskyist." 27 He
was booted out of the party, and the Stalinists started their usual
campaign of character assassination to discredit him.
The "T Group"
Philip, however, had already cultivated his own following outside the
CPGB. His circle included several Indians who were active in the
League Against Imperialism. Philip also was in touch with Ceylonese
students who were studying at Cambridge, the London School of
Economics, and the London University. He had already pulled together
a study group which included the very bright students who would later
help him form the LSSP. 28
25
IOL: LlPJ!l2/409, file P&J(S) 1711930, folio 44.
26
IOL: LlPJ!l2/272, file P&J(S) 676/1932.
27
IOL: LlPJ/12/409, file P&J(S) 1711930, folio 61.
28
Visakha Kumari Jayawardena, "Origins ofthe Left Movement in Sri Lanka," Social
Scientist, vol. 2, no. 6/7 (January/February 1974), p 12.
56
Colvin R. de Silva was a wunderkind. He was the youngest ever

to receive a PhD from King's College. He went on to read law and was
admitted to the bar. Leslie Goonewardene, the son of a Christian
doctor, graduated from the London School of Economics, studied law
at Gray's Inn, and was admitted to the bar. His roomate, N.M. Perera,
was studying economics under Harold Laski at the London School of
Economics. He ended up with a double doctorate. 29 Vernon
Gunasekera passed the bar with energy to spare for politics (and,
according to legend, romantic adventures).
As N.M Perera recalled, they would meet "in dingy digs" and
discuss politics. 30 Philip was their guru. He introduced them to
Trotskyism. While not all were convinced at that point, the group
became known as the "T Group." 31 One LSSP veteran has written that
were it not for Philip, these Ceylonese students would never have
joined the revolutionary movement. 32
No Passage to India
Philip wanted to go to India and build a new Communist Party. 33 Even

before he was excommunicated from the CPGB, he had convened
secret nocturnal discussions on that subject with several of his
confidants. But Scotland Yard somehow got wind of his plans. 34 The
29
30
31
32
33
34
N.M. Perera interview with Jeanne Ratnavira, Ceylon Observer, 18 October 1961.
Quoted in E.P. de Silva, A Short Biography ofDr. N.M Perera (Colombo, 1975), p.40.
W. Howard Wriggins, Ceylon: Dilemmas ofa New Nation (Princeton, 1960), pp. 125.
V. Karalasingham, Politics of Coalition (1964), reprinted in Al Richardson (ed.),
Blows Against the Empire: Trotskyism in Ceylon, p. 211.
The Comintern line pretty much wrecked the Indian Communist Party, or rather,
what was left of it after the government arrested most of the leaders in 1929.
Following orders from London, the Indian Communists denounced the Congress
from the sidelines at the very moment Gandhi was rousing his second great mass
movement. The Communists split from the All India Trade Union Congress and set
up a rival "Red" federation, consisting of a dozeh new, unregistered unions. Their
strikes went down in defeat. By 1930 even the Comintern had to admit that the
Indian movement was in shambles.
IOL: LlPJ/12/409, file P&J(S) 1711930, folio 38.
57
British government didn't want this Trotskyist troublemaker in India.

MJ. Clauson at the India Office sent confidential memos to the Home
Office proposing extraordinary measures to keep Philip out of India. 35
Phi lip had no choice: he had to return home.
Philip left London in early September, 1932. Whether he knew it
or not, the police were on his tail. 36 Philip contacted the French Left
Opposition in Paris and then headed for Spain. He abandoned his
books, hiked over the Pyrennes, and made his way to Barcelona, where
he contacted the Spanish Trotskyist group. 37 After a week in
Barcelona, he traveled around southern Europe. On October 14 he
boarded the SS Explorateur Grandidier at Marseilles. Philip arrived in
Ceylon on November 1, a very different man from the callow youth
who had left home ten years earlier.
The Youth Leagues
Phi lip Gunawardena had a handful of devoted followers. His younger

brother, Robert Gunawardena, was determined, energetic, and brave
to the point of recklessness. Leslie Goonewardene, just returned from
England, was another lieutenant. Like the Gunawardenas, he had the
financial means to pursue politics full time. Colvin de Silva and Vernon
Gunasekera established law practices to support their political activites.
N.M. Perera got a job as a lecturer at University College. Like
Plekhanov in Czarist Russia, Philip had to develop this nucleus into a
Marxist party.
Philip and his comrades joined the Youth Leagues, a nationalist
organization that the Sinhalese socialist, A.E. Goonesinha, had started
35
Clauson "strongly recommended" that Philip be given "a document (such as an

Emergenc;:y Certificate) which is valid for a single journey to Ceylon direct by sea
from England." Furthermore, "no travel document of any sort should be issued to
Gunawardena until he produces a ticket or receipt showing that he has booked a
passage by a direct sea route to Ceylon. This should make the procedure as
watertight as possible." lOL: LlPJ/12/409, file P&J(S) 1711930, folio 48.
36
rOL: LlP!/l2/409, file P&J(S) 1711930, folio 63.
37
K. Jayawardena, "Origins of the Left Movement in Sri Lanka," p. 12.
58
in the 'twenties. 38 With boundless energy Philip convened meetings all

over the island and rejuvenated moribund branches. 39 He was at last in
his element. He recruited the young and the old, the poor and the
p1antocracy, Sinha1ese and Tamils. Philip recruited young women, like
Susan de Silva, who dared to defy cony~ntional society. She was a
feisty feminist who dressed in slacks and wore her hair short in the
Roaring Twenties fashion. 40
In 1933 the Youth Leaguers got an opening on the labor front. The
Colombo 1abor boss, A.E. Goonesinha, tried to foist a settlement on the
workers at the Wellawatte Spinning and ~~aving Mills, one of the few
large factories on the island. Philip intervened, and he was elected
leader of the strike committee. Although the strike failed, his group got
an important base of support in the mill. They published a paper,
Kamkaruwa [The Worker], opened reading rooms for workers, and
started a Workers Education League. Thee?,perience that Philip got in
London was paying off.
The socialists also intervened in the Shriya Mal movement. Every
year on Remembrance Day the British cOp:1munity would sell poppies
and donate the proceeds to war veterans. The nationalists felt that the
Ceylonese servicemen were slighted. And so on that day Ceylonese
would sell the suriya flower and donate the proceeds to native veterans.
It was a tame protest. But the socialists injected a strong dose of antiimperialism. 41 As N.M. Perera recalled, Philip "split the youth
38
Alexander Ekanayake Goonesinha (1891-1967)forined the Ceylon Labour Union

in 1922 and led the first general strike in Ceylon the following year. In 1928 he
formed the All Ceylon Labour Union and the Ceylon Labour Party. The tram car
strike in Colombo the following year is considered the high point of his career as a
militant socialist labor leader. He was elected to'the S!ate Council in 1931 and 1936
and to Parliament in 1947. See Visakha Kun'uid Jayawardena, The Rise of the
Labor Movement in Ceylon (Colombo, 1972) .'
39
K. Jayawardena, "The Background to the Forr.nation of the Lanka Sama Samaja

Party," Young Socialist, no. 1 (March 1980), pp. 11-26.
40
Reggie Perera, "Journey Into Politics," Ceylon Observer, 12 August 1962.
4\
Samasamajist, 14 February 1952. See also Vernon Gunasekera, Pilip: ohuge

jivitaya ha desapalana satan [Philip: His Life and Political Experiences]
(Colombo, 1960), p. 10.
59
movement into a Left and a Right," and while the Right decayed, "the
Left developed at his hand." 42
In 1933-34 a malaria epidemic ravaged the island. The socialists
trekked to stricken villages and dispensed food and medicine. Most of
these young middle-class activists had never seen such suffering up
close. "The more they realized the alienation of the established national
political leaders from the common people, the more they became
convinced of their own potentiality as a political force in the country. It
was imperative that they should have a proper political organization if
the young Suriya Mal workers were to enter, in a big way, the political
arena." 43
The Ceylonese socialists were inspired by recent developments in
India. In 1934! J.P. Narayan, Philip's old friend from Madison, and
other Indian Marxists formed the Congress Socialist Party (CSP). Like
Philip, l.P Narayan had broken with the Communists over the ultraleft
line. 44 Some of his comrades agreed with his rejection of Stalinism,
but others weren't ready to go that far. And so the CSP stressed the
need for anti-imperialist unity.
Philip Gunawardena apparently regarded the CSP as a good model.
But there was one big difference. In India the socialists had a mass
organization in which to function. That didn't exist in Ceylon. The
Ceylon National Congress, formed only in 1919, was an elite,
conservative club, reminiscent of the Indian Congress fifty years
earlier. If there was to be a mass movement in Ceylon, Philip and his
little band would have to create it and lead it.
42
43
44
60
"The Passionate Socialist," Ceylon Daily News, 28 March 1972, p. 4.

Y.R. Amarasinghe, Revolutionary Idealism and Parliamentary Politics, p. 13.
Narayan regarded "the disruptive policies" carried out in Germany to be "the
gravest of Stalin's mistakes-the costliest and most criminal." Bimla Prasad (ed.),
Socialism, Sarvodaya and Democracy: Selected Works of Jayaprakash Narayan
(New York, 1964), p. 144.
Formation of the LSSP
In December, 1935 about 40 activists launched the Lanka Sama Samaja

Party (LSSP). The party brimmed with youthful idealism. Like the CSP
in India, the party's manifesto called for independence and socialism in
broad terms. The program listed specific demands aimed at improving
the welfare of the working people. The conference decided that Colvin
de Silva, a lawyer with great oratorical flair, should be the president of
the party. Phi lip, however, was the undisputed leader.
The LSSP established links with the CSP in India. Starting in 1936
the LSSP sent delegations to the annual Congress sessions. These visits
enabled the Samasamajists to make valuable contacts in the Congress
and to meet other radicals, including, as we shall soon see, the pioneer
Trotskyists who likewise attended these huge gatherings.
The LSSP was not a Leninist vanguard party at the start. Indeed, in
hindsight, there was much about the early LSSP that might seem
"Menshevik" or "reformist." This is a case where context is critical.
The LSSP was really the first political party that had ever been formed
in sleepy Ceylon. Everything about it was new and, to many, quite scary.
The Samasamajists paraded in red shits, waved the red flag, and raised
the clenched fist salute. They went around painting the hammer and
sickle on walls. The government and the Ceylonese establishment saw red.
Like the CSP, the LSSP avoided divisive doctrinal issues. Even the
name Sama Samaja-literally "equal society"-was neutral. "At a time
when Constitutions are being changed overnight," wrote Colvin de
Silva to the local newspaper, "Communists or Socialists cannot confine
themselves to any particular method." 45 Philip Gunawardena, however,
made it clear that the LSSP did not take orders from Moscow. In a
speech he stated that the LSSP "is much less militant and less
demanding than the Communist or Third International." 46 No doubt
45
Colvin de Silva, "What is Communism?" (1935), reprinted in Young Socialist

[Colombo], vol. 4, no. 4 (November 1969), p. 141.
46
Quoted in G. Lerski, Origins of Trotskyism in Ceylon, p. 26.
61
this was also a defensive p()sture. In India the government had just
banned the Communist party. Philip didn't want to put his neck in that
noose.
Speeches and Street Fights
In 1935 the government of Ceylon announced that elections for a

second State Council would be held early the following year. The LSSP
fielded four candidates: Dr, Wickremasinghe, Philip Gunawardena,
N.M. Perera, and Leslie Gqonewardene. LSSP activists trooped from
village to village with portable speaker's platforms. Crowds flocked to
the meetings just to hear the stirring oratory. Philip Gunawardena and
N.M. Perera were elected.. '
The two Samasamajists' used the State Council as another podium
to spread their message to the people outside. Session after session,
they attacked the governrri~nt and the Ceylonese establishment with
flaming indignation and ca1.lstic wit. They introduced proposals on a
wide range of subjects. One council member complained: "It is
intolerable to see these two members get up as if they were authorities
on all possible subjects under the sun ... They are playing to the
gallery." 47 One LSSP veteran recalls the division oflabor, "N.M. was a
real parliamentary debater. He studied the order papers thoroughly...
Philip was a man for the big occasion." 48
Outside the State Council, Philip Gunawardena and N .M. Perera
worked their magic on the labor front. Both were, in their own ways,
naturallabor leaders. Many of the workers, especially in the Colombo
harbour, were Indians from what is now Kerala. They suffered a double
stigma. They were ignorant "coolies" and they were also "koochies."
Phi lip and Perera could mingle with these workers with ease. One
LSSP old timer told me, with a chuckle, how when he joined the LSSP,
his parents were horrified that he was associating with "those low-caste
people."
47
Quoted in G. Lerski, Origins ofTrotskyism in Ceylon, p. 40.
48
Cholomondoley Goonewardene, quoted in The Island, 22 September 2002.
62
This was rough and tough work. The LSSP was out to unseat A.E.
Goonesinha, and he was not one to go without a fight. He sent armed
goons to attack LSSP meetings. One one occasion Philip was badly
bloodied. The LSSP fought back. Robert Gunawardena walked with a
steel-tipped cane in one hand and pistol in his pocket just in case. Philip
went to public rallies with bodyguards. Party comrades jokingly
referred to these worker militants as "Philip's cossacks."
The Popular Front
When Philip Gunawardena joined the British Communist Party in

1928, the Comintern was swinging to the left. Seven years later, when
he formed the LSSP, the Comintern was recoiling to the right. If the
ultra-left period had been prompted by the defeat in China, this sea
change was the result of the debacle in Germany.
In January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor. He moved swiftly. He
banned the KPD press, arrested thousands of Communists and
Socialists, and prevented their candidates from campaigning. With the
left in disarray, the Nazis and their allies won a majority in the
Reichstag elections in March, and Hitler was given total dictatorial
power. The KPD put up no serious resistance. The Comintern
Executive reaffirmed its full support for the line in Germany.
Trotsky seethed with anger. He grasped the magnitude of the
setback in Germany. He concluded that the Comintern had crossed its
Rubicon. "In all our subsequent work," Trotsky wrote, "it is necessary
to take as our point of departure the historical collapse of the official
Communist International... The Left Opposition ceases completely to
feel and act as an 'opposition'. It becomes an independent organization,
clearing its own road." 49 And that road would lead to the Fourth
International.
49
L. Trotsky, "It is Necessary to Build Communist Parties and an International Anew"

(15 July 1933), in Writings ofLeon Trotsky 1932-33 (New York, 1972), pp. 306, 311.
63
At that point Stalin was hardly the great anti-fascist. He actually

tried to come to terms with Hitler. 50 That was his Plan A. Hitler,
however, remained hostile. Stalin hoped for a split in the Nazi party.
But in 1934 Hitler purged his rivals. Stalin saw that a Soviet-German
alliance was not in the cards. He shifted to Plan B-an alliance with
France to hem in Hitler. 51 That strategy lasted five years, until Stalin
was finally able to consumate Plan A (the Stalin-Hitler Pact in 1939).
In February 1934 the fascists in France staged an armed attack on
the National Assembly in a bid to topple the government. Alarmed by
the threat, the ranks of both the Socialist and Communist parties
clamored for unity. 52 The French Communists formed an electoral
"front populaire" with the Socialists and the Radicals. In May, 1936
the Popular Front was swept into power, winning 376 out of the 618
seats in the National Assembly. Leon Blum, the Socialist leader,
became prime minister, with the support of the Communist Party.
so
In December 1935 Sergei Bessonov proposed a mutual non-aggression pact during

a visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. Stalin sent Karl Radek as his
confidential emissary to top-secret private meetings with German officials in
Danzig and the Gennan ambassador in Moscow. Radek, who knew too much for
his own good, was executed in 1939. Albert L. Weeks, Stalin's Other War: Soviet
Grand Strategy, 1939-1941 (Lanham [MD], 2002), p. 40; also Warren Lerner, Kart
Radek: The Last Internationalist (Stanford, 1970), pp. 156ff.
SI
It was only after Hitler's "second coup" against Ernst Roehm and his storm
troopers (the Night of the Long Knives) that Stalin turned to the League of Nations,
actively promoted collective security, and supported the French in their alliance
system in Eastern Europe.
52
On February 6, 1934 thousands of anned fascists tried to stonn parliament. The

Communist party called for a protest demonstration for February 9. The Socialists
did likewise but set their date three days later. The police attacked the Communist
demonstration, killing six and injuring 100. Then the Communist leaders
announced that they would join the demonstrations that the Socialists and CGT
labor confederation had called for February 12. In Paris the Socialists and
Communists planned to march to the same destination. Given the previous
hostilities, the mood was tense. But when the two mammoth columns converged,
shouts of solidarity rose' from the marchers on both sides; the two columns
spontaneously melted into one. The French workers thus forced their leaders to
make the common front that both had resisted for so long.
64
The Seventh Comintern Congress was convened two months later

to bless this new strategy. The message was simplistic: "Fascist
Germany threatens the Socialist Fatherland. We must pressure the
Democracies to ally with Russia. In order to do that, we have to build
up powerful movements for peace and democracy-Popular Fronts
against Fascism. These movements must not threaten our allies. Once
we defeat our main enemy, we will resume the struggle for socialism."
Trotsky had been calling for a united front against the Nazis long
before Hitler seized power. But the Popular Front was something very
different. Stalin made it perfectly clear that the Communists were to
include "bourgeois" parties, like the French Radicals, in the Popular
Front. Trotsky ripped into this strategy as a formula for outright "class
collaborationism," not different from the old reformism of the Social
Democracy. 53 It seemed obvious to him that the Communists would
have to restrain the workers in order to keep their bourgeois allies from
bolting the front. And that is exactly what would soon happen.
With this new turn, the Comintern dropped all the "class against
class" rhetoric and started talking about the Democratic Good Guys
versus the Fascist Bad Guys. Trotsky was appalled at how low the
Comintern had sunk. In his articles directed at the Communist rankand-file, he patiently pointed out the falacies. Wasn't Bad Guy
Mussolini in fact an ally of Good Guy France? Weren't there plenty of
"democratic" British politicians who were angling for their own deal
with Hitler?
The LSSP and Moscow
Phi lip Gunawardena steered the LSSP on its independent course. The
LSSP neither denounced nor endorsed the Popular Front. But on the
53
Jean Jaures, the French Socialist leader, called for an alliance of "pure republicans"
against the "reaction." This led to the bloc of the Socialists with the Radicals.
However, even the Socialists never went so far as to set up a common government
with the Radicals. They confined their policy to electoral agreements and common
parliamentary votes.
65
really critical issues of the day, such as militarism and independence

for the colonies, the LSSP diverged from the Moscow line.
The Comintern talked out of both sides of its mouth. It said
German and Japanese militarism was bad, but French militarism was
necessary. In 1934 Stalin signed a pact with France that explicity
sanctioned French military build-up. The French Communists halted
their anti-conscription campaign and in the National Assembly the
Communist deputies voted for the government's war budget. In contrast
the LSSP opposed all militarism. Philip Gunawardena declared in the
State Council, "As long as we remain in this House we will try our best
to prevent even one red cent being spent for the Ceylon Defence Force
or any other imperialist army." 54 The LSSP appealed to the people "not
to participate in any way in the coming Imperialist war." 55
Similarly, the Comintern shook its fist at German and Japanese
imperialism, while tolerating French and British colonialism. In France
the Communists supported the Popular Front government, even as
French troops crushed revolts in Morocco, Syria, and Indo-China. 56 In
England the Communists put the emphasis on reforms, rather than
independence for India. 57 Manuilsky, the Comintern secretary, stated
that the Indian Communists should "subordinate the realization of this
right of secession .. .in the interests of defeating fascism." 58 To prove
54
55
56
57
58
66

Tony Carter and Amanda Sackur, French Colonial Empire and the Popular Front
(London, 1999). The Socialist head of the Popular Front government, Leon Blum,
had always supported "progressive colonialism." In 1924 Blum stated: "We are too
imbued with love of our country to disavow the expansion of French thought and
civilization ... We recognize the right and even the duty of superior races to draw
unto them those who have not arrived at the same level of culture." Quoted in
Robert Aldrich, A Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion
(London, 1996), p. 113.
The CPGB started talking in vague terms about "immediate and substantial
improvement in the economic and political position of the people in the colonies."
Daily Worker, 18 April 1938.
Pravda, 12 March 1939. Quoted in L. Trotsky, "The Riddle ofthe USSR" (21 June
1939), in Writings of Leon Trotsky (1938-39) (New York, 1974), p. 354.
its bona fides Moscow cut off funds to the Indian Communist Party. S9
The Director of the Intelligence Bureau reported that "the active
promotion of a communist revolution in India has: receded from its
current politics." 60
In contrast the LSSP was vocal in its demand for the independence
of Ceylon and all colonies, no matter whether the imperial power was
democratic or fascist. When the matter of constitutional reform was
raised in the State Council, N.M. Perera stated: "So far as the LSSP is
concerned, we are not satisfied with responsible government. We stand
out for national independence." 61
Spain
The Popular Front was put to its greatest test in Spain during the civil
war (1936-39). Initially Stalin took a neutral position. 6~ However, once
Hitler started sending military aid to Franco, Stalin sent weapons and
S9
The Director of the Intelligence Bureau (DIB) in New' Delhi noted "the
comparatively recent closing down of the liberal supply of communist funds, which
used to reach India and other countries from Moscow and' the Comintern."
"Communist Activities in India. Extracts from Weekly Reports of the Director,
Intelligence Bureau, Home Department, Government of India;" No. 23, 11 June
1938. IOL: LIPJ/12/431, file P&J(S) 592/1938. In a subsequent report he stated
that there is "no Moscow gold" going to the CPI, the CPGB "has no money for
India" and the Indian Communist newspaper, National Front, was "rescued from
imminent bankruptcy" only by a special. donation from Communist students at
Cambridge "Communist Activities in India," No. 28, 27 July 1939. IOL: LlPJ/121
431. Victor Kiernan, one of the famous Cambridge Communists who went out to
India in 1938, recounted how he carried a document to the Indian party explaining
why "Moscow could not campaign at present for the legalization of the Indian
Party; the reason of course was Soviet eagerness for a collective security agreement
with Britain." Victor Kiernan, "The CPI and the Second World War" (1987),
reprinted in Prakash Karat (ed.), Across Time and Continents: A Tribute to Victor
G. Kiernan (New Delhi, 2003), p. 210.
60
IOL: LlPJ/12/431, file P&J(S) 812/1939.
61
Quoted in G Lerski, Origins ofTrotskyism in Ceylon, p. 97.
62
Stanley G Payne, The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism (New
.
Haven, 2004), pp. 126-27.
67
"advisors" to help the Republican government. But Stalin did not want
the civil war to ignite a socialist revolution. The Comintern warned the
Communists not to do anything to destabilize the Popular Front or the
Azafia government. In April 1936 Dimitrov and Manuilsky stated that
"in the present situation the creation of soviet power is not the order of
the day." 63 The Spanish Communists began to discourage strikes and
dropped its demand for land confiscation without compensation.
In May 1937 Catalan security forces under the personal command
of the Communist commissioner of public safety, Salas, tried to seize
the CNT-controlled telephone building in Barcelona. The attack
triggered an insurrection. Within hours barricades were raised all over
the city. The insurrection spread to Lerida, Tarragona, Gerona, and the
Aragon front. The anarchist ministers, Montseny and Garcia Oliver,
induced the CNT workers to lay down their arms and return to their
homes. After that, government assault guards seized Barcelona. The
Stalinists smeared the Barcelona commune as a "fascist uprising." 64
Soviet agents murdered the POUM leader, Andres Nin, and scores of
Trotskyists, anarchists, and other revolutionary militants. "In
Catalonia," boasted Pravda, "the elimination of Trotskyites and
Anarcho-Syndicalists has already begun; it will be carried out with the
same energy as in the USSR." 65
The LSSP, like leftists the world over, championed the Republican
cause in Spain. In early 1937 Leslie Goonewardene visited Spain and
returned with an eye-witness report. In public the LSSP avoided
criticizing the Spanish Popular Front and tbe role of the Comintern. 66
But, especially after the Barcelona insurrection, the Trotskyists
63
Quoted in S. Payne, The Spanish Civil War, p. 94.
64
Quoted in Pierre Broue and Emile Temime, The Revolution and the Civil War in
Spain (London, 1972), p. 300. In 1989 the Communist Party of Catalonia
published an editorial statement admitting that the old charges were false.
Reprinted in Wilebaldo Solano, El POUM en la historia: Andreu Nin y la
revolucion espafiola (Madrid, 1999), appendix.
65
Pravda, 17 December 1936.
66
G. Lerski, Origins ofTrotskyism in Ceylon, pp. 116, 118.
68
concluded that the Comintern intervention in Spain "appeared to be

dictated not by the needs of the Spanish revolution, but by the foreign
policy needs of the Soviet government." 67 As Colvin de Silva later
stated, the Spanish Civil War made the LSSP leaders "conscious of the
necessity of taking a definite stand on Stalinism." 68
The Moscow Trials
At the height of the Popular Front period Stalin unleashed the Great
Terror in the USSR. Hundreds of Russian and foreign Communists got
that dreaded knock on the door in the middle of the night. The first
show trial was staged in 1937; three more followed. A pantheon of Old
Bolsheviks, including Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin, were tried for
plotting with Trotsky to destroy the USSR and shot. Others of lesser
stature didn't even get a show trial. Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, the
former secretary of the League Against Imperialism, was executed in
obscurity. 69
Many who were sympathetic to the Soviet Union had second
thoughts. Jawaharlal Nehru privately expressed his misgivings.
Jayaprakash Narayan regarded the trials as "revolting in the extreme."
70 The Ceylonese Trotskyists shared that view. According to Leslie
Goonewardene, they "could not believe that the confessions in the
trials were genuine and felt compelled to come to the conclusion that
they were gigantic frame-ups." 71
67
L. Goonewardene, A Short History of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, p. 14.
68
Quoted in Lewis Scott, "Red Passage to India" [1944], p. 14. Scott, a member of
the American Socialist Workers Party and a seaman, visited India in 1944, made
contact with the underground Trotskyists, and upon his return submitted to the
party this informative and fascinating 28-page report. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
69
Nirode K. Barooah, Chatto: The Life and Times of an Indian Anti-Imperialist in

Europe (New Delhi, 2004), pp. 320-21.
70
Bimla Prasad (ed.), Socialism, Sarvodaya and Democracy: Selected Works of

Jayaprakash Narayan (New York, 1964), p. 145.
71
Leslie Goonewardene, A Short History of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, p. 14.
,69
The Trotskyist Movem.ent in India and Ceylon
Polarization of the LSSP
In London the LSSP group hotly debated the Spanish Civil war and the
Moscow trials. The most senior Samasamajist, Dr. S.A Wickremasinghe,
who had returned to London after his defeat in the 1936 elections in
Ceylon, had gone over to Stalinism. He was close to the Indian
nationalist, Krishna Menon, the leader of the India League who had
also fallen for the Popular Front line. The Trotskyist faction consisted
mainly of students; including Doric de Souza, S.C.C. Anthony PiIlai,
WiIliam Silva, and V. Satchithanandam. Most of these students were
associated with the charismatic Trotskyist, C.L.R. lames.
C.L.R. lames was an important figure. A native of Trinidad, lames
moved to England in 1932 to become a novelist. In 1933 he joined the
Labour Party, encountered some Trotskyists, and got converted to the
cause. In 1934 he joined the Marxist Group, one of the early Trotskyist
groups in Britain. lames recruited a number of Ceylonese and Indian
students in London, including the Bengali Ajit Roy, who would later
play an important role in the Indian Trotskyist movement. The Marxist
Group was a training ground for this cohort of Ceylonese students. 72
In 1937 the Ceylonese Trotskyists started returning to Ceylon,
helping to tip the scales in the LSSP even more. At this point Phi lip
Gunawardena had a growing faction of hard-core Trotskyists, which
included Terrence de Zylva, the founder of Kolonnawa Vidyala, who
has not been given sufficient credit in the histories of the LSSP. The
Stalinist heavyweights, Wickremasinghe and Keuneman, returned to
Ceylon a year or so later and joined the Stalinist minority, which had
formed around A. Vaidialingam, a former principal of the Hindu
College in laffna. 73 Philip Gunawardena accused the pro-Comintern
72
73
70
"On the Necessity for an Independent Bolshevik-Leninist Organization in Britain,"

24 July 1938, in National Bulletin. prepared for the National Conference of the
Bolshevik Leninist Organisations in Britain, p. 4.
Co Iv in de Silva, Their Politics-and Ours (Colombo, 1954), p. 20.
group of "trying to smuggle into the party Stalinist contraband."

was getting harder to preserve party unity.
74
It
In 1938 Trotsky published his masterpiece, The Revolution

Betrayed, in which he analyzed the Stalinist degeneration of the
Bolshevik Revolution. Despite the crimes of Stalin, Trotsky insisted
that the USSR had to be defended. He argued that the Stalinist regime
was paving the way for a restoration of capitalism-a view which stood
the ultimate verdict of history pretty well. Several leaders of the LSSP
have stated how influential that book was on the ideological
development of the Trotskyist wing of the party. 75 In 1939 Colvin de
Silva, for the first time, criticized the Popular Front in a party study
group that he was leading. 76
Stalin-Hitler Pact
On August 23, 1939 Stalin finally got his deal with Hitler. The USSR
entered into a Non-Aggression pact with Gennany. Gennan tanks rolled
into Poland, while the Red Army invaded from the East. Many
Communists were stunned. Some parties, not grasping what was
happening, persisted with the Popular Front line, reaffirming their
support for war against Gennany. 77 The Comintern soon deepened
their grasp of dialetics. The Good Guys became Bad Guys, and vice
versa.
74
Philip Gunawardena, speech before the Magistrate's Court, Kandy, 8 February

1944. Typescript, 2 pp. Reprinted as "Statement ofIndian Trotskyists on Trial,"
Workers International News (December, 1944), p.15 and Socialist Appeal
(December, 1944), p. 3.
7S
Hector Abhayavardhana, "How the LSSP Turned Trotskyist," Lanka Guardian. 15

July 1982, pp. 1,23. The late Doric de Souza has said the same. G. Lerski, Origins
ofTrotskyism in Ceylon. p. 157.
76
Hector Abhayavardhana, "How the LSSP Turned Trotskyist," p. 23.
77
Harry Pollitt, How to Win the War, quoted in Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson,
Two Steps Back: Communists and the Wider Labour Movement. 1935-1945
(London, 1982), p. 63.
71
The Communist parties portrayed the pact as mere diplomacy. But

the reality was that Stalin was supplying the Nazi war machine with
oil, phosphate, food, platinum, and other vital raw materials. As part of
the pact the Soviets also handed over German Communists to the
Nazis. 78 That was a death sentence for most.
On Stalin's direct orders, the Comintern became a mouthpiece for
Hitler's "peace offensive." 79 The Daily Worker blamed Britain for the
German invasion of Holland. 80 When Paris fell, Stalin congratulated
Hitler on his "splendid" victory. 81 Everything German was extolled.
Sergei Eisenstein was ordered to stage Hitler's beloved opera,
Wagner's Die Walkiire, at the Bolshoi Theatre.
The LSSP did not change its position on the war, or the
"unconditional defense of the USSR." On September 5, 1939, when the
question of a war budget came before the State Council, Philip
Gunawardena stated, "The last world-war of 1914-1918 was an
Imperialist war fought for the division of colonies and semi-colonies.
This war too is a war between two I~perialist groups, the German
Fascist Imperialism and the British and French Imperialisms. This war
too is for the division and redivision of the colonies and semi-colonies.
We refuse to be a Party to any Imperialist War. We are against all
imperialist wars and exploitation." 82
78
79
80
81
82
72
One notable victim was Margarete Buber-Neumann (1901-89), the widow of the
German Communist leader, Heinz Neumann, who was executed in Moscow
during the purge of 1937,. She was sent to Siberia. After the Stalin-Hitler pact, she
was handed over to the Germans at Brest-Litovsk and spent the war at the
Ravensbriick concentration camp. She recounted her ordeals in Als Gefangene bei
Stalin und Hitler (Munich, 1949), translated as Under Two Dictators (London,
1949). She later became the companion of Kamalesh Bannerji, a founder of the
Indian Trotskyist movement who had moved to Europe in 1947 to participate in
the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International.
As recently discovered archives show, Stalin personally instructed Dimitrov, the
Comintern boss, to switch from anti-Nazi propaganda to anti-British propaganda.
Alexander Dallin and F. 1. Firsov (eds.), Dimitrov and Stalin 1934-1943: Letters
from the Soviet Archives (New Haven, 2000), documents 28 and 29, pp. 153 ff.
Daily Worker, 11 May 1940.
Albert L. Weeks, Stalin 's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy. 1939-1941. p. 86.
Quoted in G. Lerski, Origins of Trotskyism in Ceylon. p. 206.
Links with the Fourth International
In 1938 the Fourth International was founded at a secret meeting in

Paris. No doubt, the Trotskyists in the LSSP welcomed the news. In
1939 a leading member of the inner group, Selina Perera, was sent on
a mission to establish connections with the new international. Selina
was married to N.M. Perera. But she was a well-respected leader in her
own right; she has been called the "unsung heroine" of the LSSP. 83
Selina arrived in London in 1939 and contacted the British
Trotskyist groups. 84 She couldn't stay very long. When the war began,
she left for Ceylon via the USA. Her plan was to meet with the
American Trotskyists and then visit Trotsky, who at that point was
living precariously in Mexico since January 1937.
In New York she contacted the leaders of the Socialist Workers
Party (SWP), the American section of the Fourth International. The
American Trotskyists had already established contacts with some
sympathetic Congre3s Socialists in India and were eager to meet a real
comrade. The SWP's interest in India was largely due to Stanley
Plastrik ("Sherman Stanley"), an energetic youth leader who had
become the party's self-appointed "India expert." 85 Selina Perera gave
83
84
85
Hector Abhayavardhana, "Selina Perera-The Forgotten Socialist Militant,"

Pravada, vol. 4, no. 10-11 (1997), pp. 19-20.
Selina Perera stayed with Charlie van Gelderen (1913-2001), a Trotskyist from
South Africa who had joined the Marxist League after he moved to Britain in 1935.
He had attended the Founding conference of the Fourth International as an
observer. When the Marxist League folded, he joined the Revolutionary Socialist
League. Letter from CharIie van Gelderen to author, 28 March 1998.
Stanley Plastrik was the nephew of party co-founder, Max Shachtman. He wrote
about Indian politics for the party paper, Socialist Appeal, and the journal, New
International. He made contacts with Indian nationalists living in New York and
got in touch with Minoo Masani, the secretary of the Congress Socialist Party in
Bombay, who invited the SWP to submit articles to its journal. Interview with
Stanley Plastrik, 7 December 1974. Masani published several: Congress Socialist,
22 January 1939, 26 March 1939, and 25 June 1939. Plastrik wrote report after
report to Trotsky, pestering him to write an open letter to the Congress
Socialist Party, which he fatuously described as a mass organization with millions of
the SWP leaders a full report on the situation in Ceylon. 86 She stated
that "only technical reasons" prevented the LSSP from affiliating with
the Fourth International. 87 The SWP dispatched this encouraging news
to Trotsky in Mexico. 88
At that point the SWP had a special status in the Fourth
International. The SWP played an absolutely vital role in providing
Trotsky and his household in Mexico with secretaries, bodyguards, and
all sorts of other logistical support. In addition, the International
Secretariat (IS) of the Fourth International, which had been based in
Paris, shifted to New York at the start of the war for safety reasons.
Though nominally the highest body of the Fourth International, the IS
occupied a small office at SWP headquarters in Greenwich Village.
Sam Gordon was the Secretary.
Selina requested permission to visit Trotsky. The IS agreed. 89 The
plan was for her to go to Texas, cross the border, visit Trotsky in
Coyacan, return to the US, and sail from Los Angeles. But when she
got to the border crossing, she was turned back on a technicality. She
was deeply disappointed. 90 She sent Trotsky a letter from California
explaining what had happened and sailed for home. On November 24
Trotsky sent Selina a letter expressing "warmest greetings to yourself
members. Harvard, bMs Russ 13.1, folder 1: letter 5364, folder 2: letter 5369. In
July, 1939 Trotsky wrote an "Open Letter" to the Congress Socialists. Leon
Trotsky, "Open Letter to the Workers of India," New International. September
1939, pp. 263-66. In his memoirs Masani stated that the Congress Socialists
understood that the letter was really an appeal to their party. Masani, Bliss Was It in
That Dawn (New Delhi, 1977), p. 140.
86
87
88
The SWP newspaper, Socialist Appeal. also interviewed her. The interview was
published in Socialist Appeal. 10 November 1939. The paper identified her only as
"a Ceylonese comrade."
Letter from Sherman Stanley [Stanley Plastrik] to Leon Trotsky, 2 May 1939.
Harvard: Trotsky Collection, bMS Russ 13.1, document 5367.
The letters from Plastrik to Trotsky are in Trotsky archive at Harvard, bMs Russ
13.1, folder 1: letter 5364, folder 2: letter 5369.
89 .
"Minutes of the I.E. Club," 21 September 1939.
90
Interview with Selina Perera (Calcutta), 10 February 1974.
74
The Trotskyist Movement ,in India and Ceylon
and to the Ceylon' comrades." This was subsequently published as a

letter to an "Indian comrade." 91
The Showdown in the LSSP
When Selina Perera arrived in Ceylon, the situation in the LSSP was
tense. Philip Gunawardena and his group had decided that the Stalinist
minority could no longer be tolerated in the party. Both sides braced
for the showdown. Philip had an overwhelming majority.
In December, 1939 the Executive Committee met for what would
be a historic session. The Trotskyist faction introduced the following
resolution: "Since the Third International has not acted in the interests
of the international revolutionary working-class movement, while
expressing its solidarity with the Soviet Union, the first workers' state,
the Lanka Sama Samaja Party declares that it has no faith in the Third
International." 92 The gauntlet was thrown down at last. The resolution
passed, 29-to-5. 93
At the next meeting of the executive committee, the Stalinists were
expelled from the party. Their faction represented only about a tenth of
the membership. But they had a base among the Colombo harbour
workers. The Stalinists demanded that the executive committee call a
party conference to decide the question of their membership. That took
some nerve, given how the Stalinists, treated the Opposition. The
Stalinists subsequently formed the United Socialist Party in November,
1940. That group became the Ceylon Communist Party in July, 1943.
The LSSP leadership moved qllickly to explain to the party
members and periphery what had led to this rupture. Leslie
Goonewardene was given that job. In The Third International
Condemned he explained how the Popular ,Front policy led the French
91
"A Letter on India," Writings of Leon Trotsky (1939-40) (New York, 1969), p. 14,
92
Quoted in G. Lerski, Origins of Trotskyism in Ceylon. p. 211.
93
The five Stalinists who cast the dissenting votes were Dr. S.A. Wickramasinghe,
M.G. Mendis, K:Ramanathan, W.Ariyaratne, andA. Gunasekera.
and British Communist parties to a jingoist line. He argued that the onset
of a new world war made the split in the LSSP unavoidable. "The Second
International betrayed the working class in the war of 1914-18. Today
the Third International by subordinating the International revolutionary
movement to Soviet Union foreign policy is commiting another
betrayal." 94 With that pamphlet the LSSP announced that it had formally
become a Trotskyist party in solidarity with the Fourth International.
Dissident Communists in India
Meanwhile, in India the first Trotskyist groups had been formed,

lTIainly in reaction to the Popular Front policy of the Communist Party
of India (CPI). In 1936 the Comintern, working through theCPGB,
. applied the Popular Front policy to India. 95 Basically, the CPI cadres
were told to apply for membership in the Congress Socialist Party and
the Congress itself. (The Socialists in fact required all .members to
participate in the Congress.) The Comintern, howeyer,did not
explicitly repudiate the former left policy.
A lot of Indian Communists were confused. In 1936 the CPI's
newspaper, still faithfully spouting the old line, called Congress
"definitely a class organization of the Indian bourgeoisie." The
Comintern responded with a sternly worded directive demanding that
the Indian party shed its "Ultra-Left-sectarianism." 96 All attacks on the
nationalist leaders had to stop. The British Communists explained the
new line even more bluntly: "We want to think of the CSP as OURS ...
94
L. S. Goonewardena, The Third International Condemned! (Colombo, 1940), p.
9S
R. Palme Dutt and Ben Bradley, "The Anti-Imperialist Peoples' Front," Inprecor,
29 February 1936; and Dutt and Bradley, "Towards a New Clarification," Congress
Socialist, 5 June 1937. See also Bhagwan Josh, "Nationalism, Third International
and Indian Communists: Communist Party in the United National Front (193439)," in Bipan Chandra (ed.), The Indian Left: Critical Appraisals (New Delhi,
1983).
96
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPI, "On the Letter from
Abroad," Circular No. 8,1 August 1936. IOL: LlPJ/12/430. File P&J(S) 92111936.
10.
76
That can only be achieved by our going into the CSP wholesale and on
ANY conditions that they lay down; we must work there as true members,
and no underhand work or attempts to capture power in haste." 97
Many had a hard time swallowing this capitulation to the
Socialists. One of those recalcitrant Communists was Onkarnath
Verma Shastri, a young member of the party cell in Benares, a
Congress Socialist stronghold. Originally from Allahabad, he joined
the Congress at Kashi Vidyapith, the nationalist college in Benares. He
courted arrest during the Civil Disobedience movement and served
time in Rai Barelli Jail in 1932. At college, according to police records,
he "indulged in politics and soon became a prominent socialist; drifted
from socialism to communism and became the left-wing leader of the
Kashi Vidyapith party." 98
Onkamath was a good platform speaker. In February, 1936 he'took
a prominent part in the United Provinces Youth Conference held at
Benares. The party sent him to organize similar youth conferences in
Kanpur, Allahabad, Lucknow, and Guntur. He attacked the Congress
and the Socialists with gusto. One day the CPI leader, P.e. Joshi,
arrived in Benares and instructed Onkamath to "form a united front
committee with the Congress Socialists for local purposes." 99 He did
so half-heartedly. Joshi got wind of his misgivings and demanded that
he admit his "errors." 100 Onkamath quit the next day in protest.
97
98
M.S., "Some Rough Notes on the United Front," 6 July 1938, in "Communist
Activities in India. Extracts from Weekly Reports of the Director, Intelligence Bureau,
Home Department, Government ofIndia," no. 18,7 May 1938. IOL: LlPJ/12/431.
The United Provinces Political "Who's Who," 1936. This bound volume, prepared
by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Criminal Investigation Department
(Special Branch) at Allahabad, is preserved in the India Office Library as document
LlPJ/12/672. "Onkarnath Verma (alias Shastri)" is entry number 234. "Shastri"
was not an "alias." It was an educational degree bestowed on those who had
mastered Sanskrit to a certain level. The nationalists who earned the degree added
"Shastri" to their names as a title, showing their devotion to Mother India and her
ancient culture. Lal Bahadur Shastri, who succeeded Nehru as Prime Minister in
1964, is a prominent example.
99
Letter from Onkarnath Shastri to author, received June 1974.
100
Letter from Onkarnath Shastri to author, received June 1974.
77
The Communist leaders spread the word that Onkarnath was a

"Trotskyite," a renegade to be avoided. He considered that an insult.
So he decided to read Trotsky for himself. He started with The History
of the Russian Revolution. By the time he finished, he was deeply
impressed by the man he once demonized. He returned to his native
Allahabad and, with financial p.elp from local Congressmen of his same
caste, he started a weekly vernacular newspaper, Samaj [Society].
Onkarnath used Samaj to tell the truth about Trotsky, explain his ideas
in simple language, and criticize the CPI leaders. 101 Onkarnath used it
to gather a circle of young followers.
One of his early recruits was Karuna Kant Roy. While still a
schoolboy in Calcutta, he had participated in the Civil Disobedience
protests of 1930. He was beaten several times by the police and jailed.
After his release, he walke4 through the countryside to experience
village life, as Gandhi recommended. He enrolled at Kashi Vidyapith
in Benares. Roy helped Shastri distribute Trotskyist literature. Roy
returned to Calcutta and with another comrade, Sheo Pratap, produced
a Hindi journal, Avaz [The Voice]. 102
.....
.'
The late Ansar Harvani, a journalist and two-term member of the

Lok Sabha, encountered this group of young Trotskyists. Harvani had
been a student activist at Aligarh Muslim University. He was
influenced by Minoo Masani, the general secretary of the Congress
Socialist Party, who was openly sympathetic to Trotsky. 103 In his
101
Hazarilal, "Samyavad ke VishV<i me Shuru ki Bate" [Introductory Remarks About

Communism], Samaj, 17 January 1938. Copy from collection of the late Onkarnath
Shastri.
102
Interview with Karuna Kant Ray (Calcutta), 30 January 1974. I have not been able
to locate any surviving issues. According to KK Roy, only four or five issues were
put out in Calcutta, irregularly, before it closed for lack of funds.
103
In that period Masani was aligned with the ILP, which opposed the Popular Front
in language that was close to Trotsky's. The ILP staged an anti-war conference in
direct opposition to a rival COrfljntern congress. See Partha Sarathi Gupta, "British
Labour and the Indian Left, 1919-1939," in B.R. Nanda (ed.), Socialism in India
(New York, 1972), p. 116. Masani went on record in defense ofTrotsky during the
period of the Moscow Trials.
78
memoirs Harvani relates how he went to Acharya Narendr.a Dev, the

Socialist professor in Banaras who had taught Onkarnath Shastri, to get
help in fighting the Communist attempt to take over the student
federation. "He promptly obliged and gave me the names of about a
dozen students ofBanaras Hindu University and Kashi Vidyapth." 104
In those days the Socialists and populist leaders, like Swami
Sahajanand, were busy organizing kisan sabhas [peasant unions] all
over the United Provinces and Bihar. The CPI joined this movement.
The peasant leaders demanded the expropiation of the zamindars
without compensation. The Congress, having just won the elections to
the provincial government with zamindar help, demanded that the
kisan sabhas drop that demand. 105 The CPI was in a bind. The CPI
used to raise that demand. But with the turn to the Popular Front the
Comintern instructed the CPI to drop it. 106 Shastri and his group threw
this in the face of the CPI leaders at peasant conferences. The CPI
manhandled the Trotskyists who were distributing Samaj. 107
104
Ansar Harvani, Before Freedom and After: Personal Recollections of One of the
Key Witnesses of Indian Events Over the Last Half Century (New Delhi, 1989), p.
21.
105
In the election campaign the Congress candidates promised to support the poor
peasants. Once in office the Congress started breaking their election promises.
Sardar Patel declared, "We shall have to resist the excessive demands Qfthe tenants
who have been worked up and expect too much from the Congress Ministries."
The Congress Ministry arrested peasant leaders. The Viceroy himself noted, "The
policy of the Congress party towards the kisan organizations has been firm, and
even repressive." Quoted in Kapil Kumar, "Peasants, Congress and the Struggle
for Freedom: 1917-39," in KapiJ Kumar (ed.), Congress and Classes: Nationalism,
Workers and Peasants (New Delhi, 1988), p. 247.
106
At the Seventh Comintern Congress the official reporter on the colonial question,
Wang Ming, stated that Communists should not demand expropriation of the rich
landlords without compensation: "Such demands on the part of our Indian
comrades can serve as an example of how not to carry on the tactics of the antiimperialist United Front." Quoted in Shashi Joshi, Struggle for Hegemony in India,
1920-47: The Colonial State, the Left and the National Movement. Vo\. 1: 1920-34
(New Delhi, 1992), p. 112.
107
Interview with Karuna Kant Roy, January 30,1974.
79
In 1938 Shastri moved to Kanpur, an industrial city, where the

Socialists led the big union federation, Kanpur Mazdoor Sabha (KMS).
The CPI formed committees in the textile mills and surrounding slums
and organized the Muslim workers, who had been ignored by the
Socialists (who were all high-caste Hindus). 108 Having built their own
base, the Communists fomented militant strikes, which eventually
created a crisis for the Congress Ministry. Harihar N ath Shastri, the
Socialist head of the KMS, turned to Onkarnath for help in combatting
the Communist takeover. Apart from politics, the two shared other
important connections: caste (Kayastha) and the old school tie (the
shastri title from Kashi Vidyapith). "Thinking I could expose them to
their advantage," Shastri recalled, "Harihar Nath Shastri invited me
there." 109 Onkarnath Shastri used the Socialists to recruit his own
group of mill workers. 110
At that point Shastri decided he had a sufficient following to form
a party-the Bolshevik Leninist Party of the United Provinces and
Bihar. In a chronological sense this was probably the first organized
Trotskyist group in India. However, as Shastri himself admits, it could
be called a "Trotskyist party" only with qualifications. Shastri was
pretty much the dada [big brother] who ran the group and formulated
its line. Some of the students and young intellectuals might have read
the one or two books by Trotsky that were then available in English in
India. But the scattered groups of illiterate peasants and the mill hands
in Kanpur had no inkling what Trotskyism was all about. This was
hardly a unique situation. It was very common in those days for middleclass activists, who had a little money in their pocket and the right caste
connections, to gather together a personal following.
As it turned out, Onkarnath Shastri didn't have much time to
develop his party. The police were watching him closely. In 1939 he
108
S.M. Pandey, As Labour Organises: A Study of Unionism in the Kanpur Cotton

Textile Industry (New Delhi, 1970), pp. 44-66.
109
Letter from Onkamath Shastri to author, postmarked in June 1974.
110
Letter from Onkamath Shastri to author, June 1974.
80
was arrested and locked up in the Agra Central Jail for making
"seditious speeches" against the war. Released, he continued to speak
out against the war. The government issued a warrant for his arrest
under Section 124A of the defense rules. "I was at Lucknow then,
where I went underground." III He had to move from town to town to
evade the police. As a result, his followers were left adrift.
Unbeknownst to Shastri, there were Communist dissidents
elsewhere in I~dia who had taken up the cause of Trotsky. In
Ahmedabad a former CPI youth activist, Chandravadan Shukla,
formed his own Trotskyist party, also based on groups of students and
textile workers. Shukla had joined the CPI in 1936. He was put to work
as secretary of the local Mill Kamgar Union. His wife was also a
comrade. "We didn't oppose the Comintern line at first. We just felt
that the new line in India was a national deviation and mistaken." 112
In early 1938 Shukla expressed his differences with CPI leaders.
He got the usual treatment: he was denounced as a "Trotskyite." The
Shuklas withdrew from the CPI and joined a circle of dissident
Communists and radicals in Ahmedabad who gathered to discuss
politics. In 1939 Shukla produced a manifesto, Samyavad ane Hind
[Communism and India], for discussion. 1131t denounced the CPI for its
Popular Front policy and criticized the Congress Socialists for
providing a left cover for bourgeois nationalism. But it was tentative in
its Trotskyism. "The Fourth International seems to be a Marxist
organization, but not much is known about it." 114
Shukla developed student groups in Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar, and a
few other towns in what is now Gujarat. After the war started, Shukla
formed the Bolshevik Mazdoor [Workers] Party oflndia (BMP) on an
III
Letter from Onkarnath Shastri to author, 15 November 1977.
112
Interview with Chandravadan Shukla, 7 June 1974.
113
Chandravadan Shukla, Samyavad ane hind (Communism and India). Ahmadabad:

Majur Sahitya Prachar Sabha, 1939. The only known copy was in possession of
late C.V. Shukla.
Samyavad ane hind, p. 34.
114
81
explicitly Trotskyist basis. liS The Ahmedabad group published Inkilab

[Revolution], while the Bhavnagar committee produced Tanakha [The
Spark]. Both were little broadsheets that appeared irregularly, as
finances were available. The first issue of Tanakha printed Trotsky's
"Open Letter to the Workers of India" in Gujarati. The BMP called for
a general strike to oppose the war: "Not one paisa [penny], not one
man for the imperialist war!" 116
In 1940 Shukla moved from Ahmedabad to Bombay, the epicenter
of the Indian labor movement. In Bombay he was able to expand his
political connections. He soon encountered another pioneer, a white
South African who had come to India in 1936 and had since become
well-known on the left as a flaming Trotskyist.
Trotskyism in Bombay
Murray Gow Purdy had gotten politicized while still a young man in
Johannesburg in the late 1920s. 117 He met Frank Glass, a former leader
of the Communist Party of South Africa who solidarized with the Left
Opposition. 118 Glass was in touch with the American Trotskyist group,
115
This group included Shukla, his wife, Ratilal Shah, and Natwar Bhavasar in
Ahmedabad and Rajendra Trivedi, Balwand Goswami, Anand Rawal, and Pranu
Bhatt in Bhavnagar.
116
"What is to be done?" Inkilab, no. 8, October 1941; "The Imperialist War and Its
Consequences Sharpen the Old and New Contradictions in India," Tanakha. no. 1,
[nd]; "Overthrow Imperialism," Inquilab. no. 9, March 1942; and "May Day
Manifesto," Inquilab. no. 10, May 1942.
117
Letter from Murray Gow Purdy to J.P. Cannon and Max Shachtman, dated
"beginning of December, 1938." Houghton Library, Harvard University. BMS Russ
13.1 (15281); and Letter from Frank Glass to Ernest Harsch, 17 April 1978.
Hoover: Joseph Hansen Papers, box 93.
118
C. Frank Glass (1901-1988) was born in Birmingham and emigrated with his
family to South Africa when he was 10. He was a founding member of the South
African Communist Party in 1921. He broke from the CPSA in 1928 and
supported the Russian Opposition led by Trotsky. In 1930 he relocated to Shanghai,
where he worked as a journalist and helped to establish the Communist League, the
Chinese section of the International Left Opposition. He used the pseudonyms Li
Fu-Jen, Ralph Graham, and John Liang. Glass reported for the American Trotskyist
82
.. '"":.
then called the Communist League, and sold its ~ewspaper, The
Militant, in the little left-wing bookshop he ran. Glassrecruited Purdy
and a few others, including RaffLee [Raphael Levy],)lvery talented, if
somewhat bohemian, organizer and writer. In 1931 Glass moved to
China, where he worked as a journalist and helpedthe Chinese Left
Opposition group.
In 1934 Purdy and Lee formed the Bolshevik~Leninist League in
Johannesburg. 119 Purdy, a white man of American ancestry, identified
with the black masses in a personal way. He admired the Bantus as "a
brave, honest, and sincere people who will, if they ever get started,
sweep out their enemies with a mighty blow. What they need is a
programme and leaders." 120 He revitalized the Native Laundry Workers
Union and led a strike which landed him in jail. The strike exacerbated
frictions between Purdy and Lee. The two got intoaftst fight at a party
meeting, and as a result Purdy was expelled on Jurie22, 1935. 121 Like
Glass, Purdy decided to pursue politics elsewhere;.
On September 5, 1935 Purdy left for Abyssinia (Ethiopia), on the
eve of the Italian invasion. He was interested i~helping the Indian
minority there, who suffered discrimination, nOt"linlike what Gandhi
had protested during his years in South Africa. 122Pllr~y was fascinated
... :"
newspaper, The Militant, during the 1937 Japanese inva;sion of China. He was
forced to leave the country in 1941 as Japanese troops approached Shanghai, and
he moved to New York, where he joined the SWP and worked on the Militant's
editorial staff for the remainder of World War n. He was a member of the SWP's
national committee from 1944 to 1963.
119
lan Hunter, "Raff Lee and the Pioneer Trotskyists of Johannesburg: A Footnote to
the History of British Trotskyism," Revolutionary History, v. 4. no. 4 (1993), p. 62.
120
Murray Gow Purdy, The South African Indian Problem-A Revolutionary Solution
(Bombay, 1943), p. 21. Hoover, LSH, box 52.
12\
Both Purdy and Lee were tough characters. Raff Lee h!id a police record for petty
burglary. John Saperstein, another early Trotskyist, served time for gun-running on
behalf of the Communist Party. lan Hunter, "Raff Lee and the Pioneer Trotskyists
of Johannesburg," p. 62. Baruch Hirson, the historian of South African Trotskyism,
notes that "Purdy's role was not very savoury." Letter from Baruch Hirson to
author, 21 September 1997.
Letter from Baruch Hirson to author, 23 April 1992.
\22
83
by Gandhi, calling him "the greatest politician the eastern world has
ever produced." 123 Purdy sent a letter to William Gallacher, the
Communist MP, demanding that British foreign secretary Anthony
Eden intervene on behalf of the Indians in Addis Ababa. The British
Ambassador told Purdy to leave the country.
In early 1936 Purdy sailed to Bombay "to create, or Jom, a
Trotskyist movement." 124 When he arrived, he discovered that no such
movement existed. But there was a pro-Trotsky trend within the
Congress Socialist Party. Minoo Masani, the general secretary in
Bombay, openly defended Trotsky and printed pro-Trotsky articles in
the journal Congress Socialist. 125 R.B. Lotvala, a wealthy businessman
who patronized the left, saw to it that The New International was sold
in Bombay. 126 Ratilal Mehta, a Congressman associated with Vande
Mataram, published a biography of Trotsky. 127
123
124
125
126
127
84
Letter from Purdy to Max Shachtman and James P. Cannon, 1938.

Letter from Purdy to Max Shachtman and James P. Cannon, 1938.
Kama1 Biswas,. "Dictatorship of the Proletariat and U.S.S.R.," Congress Socialist.
5 June 1937. "Kama1 Biswas" might have been a pseudonym. The British
Communist Party sent a rebuttal. "The U.S.S.R. and the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat, Congress Socialist, 17 July 1937. Krishna Menon, the head of the India
League in London and a recent convert to Stalinism, fretted about the "streak of
Trotskyist deviation" in the CSP which he felt was "too pronounced to be ignored."
Quoted in Partha Sarathi Gupta, "British Labour and the Indian Left, 1919-1939,"
p. 117; and TJ.S. George, Krishna Menon: A Biography (London, 1964), p. 92.
The Congress Socialist published an article, "Popular Front: No Way to October,"
by "a Ceylon Marxist." The author was Vernon Gunasekera.
In the early 'twenties Lotvala patronized the handful of Communist sympathizers
in Bombay, financed a new English weekly, Socialist, and established a wellstocked Socialist library. He went to England and worked with the British
Communist Party. After his return to India he studied the literature of both the Left
and the Right Opposition and published some of the documents in his journal, the
Advocate. A rich Parsi businessman, Lotvala owned several newspapers, including
the weekly Chitra, which carried pro-Trotsky articles. Lotvala later became a
devout Gandhian. Indulal K. Yajnik, Life ofRanchoddas Bhavan Lotvala (Bombay,
1952), p. 51. Yajnik was Lotvala's personal secretary.
Ratilal Mehta latetbecame a sympathizer of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India.
The party used hi's'office in Bombay as a "cover" to receive mail from abroad.
Hoover: SWPPapers, box 38.
.
Purdy cast off his Western clothes, donned khadi and a Gandhi
cap, and joined the Congress. 128 He evidently disagreed with Trotsky
on the nature of Congress. Purdy regarded the Congress as "a narrow
and capitalistically dominated type of united front," rather than a
capitalist party properly speaking. 129 Nevertheless, in practice his
approach seems to have been the same. "We shall struggle against the
[capitalist] leadership, but will not fool the masses about the
probablility of capturing the machine." He emphasized the need to
build an independent Trotskyist party outside the Congress.
Purdy saw his first task as the development of a Trotskyist program
for India. Over the next three years he wrote a 150-page treatise on
Indian society and history, which he subsequently boiled down to a
pamphlet: the Bolshevik-Leninist-Trotskyist Draft Provisional
Programme. 130 Purdy based his work on the program of the
International Left Opposition, adopted in 1933. 131 He apparently didn't
128
129
130
131
Purdy was always a man who lived his beliefs. He regarded European clothing to be a
sign of the "official white-man caste. snobbish and offensive to a degree." Murray
Gow Purdy, The South Afi-ican Indian Problem-A Revolutionary Solution. p. 3. He
ate from the food stalls in the streets and ended up getting sick for eighteen months.
"The Bolshevik-Leninists demand the right to operate as Congressmen and women,
and shall put forward our own Congress programme despite expulsions or other
pressure from the capitalist Right-Wing controllers who desire to exploit the masses
politically without opposition. We shal1 not be brow-beaten nor hood-winked into
abandoning our claim to speak as Congressmen, as active workers in the united
front ofthe nation now mobilized behind Congress." Yarrumji Eedrupji, BolshevikLenillist-Trotskyist Draft Provisional Programme. pp. 33-34.
In the preface Purdy emphasized that his pamphlet was a "draft provisional
program to be presented to the International, and it is put forward for discussion
and improvement by the leaders of the working class itself." Yarrumji Eedrupji
[Murray Purdy], Bolshevik-Leninist- Trotskyist Draft Provisional Programme
(Bombay, n.d.). "Yarrumji Eedrupji" is obviously "MUl'ray Purdy" spelled
backward, with the Hindi honorific suffix, "ji" (as in "Gandhiji"). Author's copy,
original in possession of the late Sitaram B. Kolpe.
Leon Trotsky, "The International, Its Tasks and Methods," December 1932. The
"eleven points" were adopted by the first conference (called a "pre-conference") of
the International Left Opposition, held in Paris, 4-8 February 1933. Most of these
points were incorporated into subsequent documents adopted by Trotsky's
movement, including the culminating "Transitional Program," adopted at the
founding conference of the Fourth International in 1938.
85
The Trotskyist Movemenrin India and Ceylon
have the "Transitional Program," which the Fourth International had

just adopted in 1938.
Purdy applied Trotsky's thesis of Permanent Revolution in a very
novel way. He saw the Harijans ("Untouchables") as the key to
socialist revohition. The vast majority of Harijans were landless
laborers who toiled:)n the fields, worked in the factories, and performed
the work that caste Hindus considered "impure" and "polluting," such
as cleaning latrlnes,sweeping, and tanning hides. In short, they had
nothing to loose except their chains. Purdy w'as convinced that the
Harijans in theirffiany millions would rally to an urban-based Soviet
regime: "the heteditary proletarians forming the untouchable Harijan
class shall be th~ispinal cord of the proletarian government, of which
the industrial prqletariat must be the head." 132 Purdy concluded that
"in India the workers dictatorship will in every sense of the word be
the Untouchable Dfctatorship of the Working Class." 133
As many sociologists have since shown, caste is highly complex
and nuanced and does not neatly correspond to class. But at that time
the scientific study ~f caste had barely begun. Purdy, to his credit, was
one of the first Marxists to really delve into the caste issue and make it
the pivot of his political program. 134 Purdy wanted his party to be
known as the fighters for the most downtrodden. "Unlike the Stalinist
Communist Party;? he wrote, "we openly state our dependence upon
and integral unity with the Harijan propertyless proletarian class. Our
work must be: among our Harijan brethren, and we must oppose the
treacherous Gandhian propaganda among them." 135 And to show his
\32
Yarrumji Eedrupji, Bolshevik-Leninist-1i"Otskyist Draft Provisional Programme,

p. 31. Emphasis in original.
133
M.o. Purdy, Constituent Assembly: Is It Possible in India? And its Alternative

[Surat, 19461; pp. 18-19. Hull: BrynmorJones Library.
134
IlS
86
In 1936 Dr. Arnbedkar, the Untouchable crusader, criticized the intelligentsia ~or
failing to seriously study the caste system and the left for failing to fight it. Bhimrao
Ramji Ambeq.~ar; Annihilation of Caste with a Reply to Mahatma Gandhi; and
Castes in Indiii,.Their Mechanism. Genesis. and Development (Jullunder, 1968).
Yarrumji Eedn:ipj!,Bolshevik-Leninist-Trotskyist Draft Provisional Programme.
p.31.
own solidarity, he Indianized his name to "Purdy-Singh," emulating the

Harijans who "Sanskritized" their names as a gesture of selfaffirmation. 136
Purdy didn't bite his tongue inside Congress. He not only
criticized the Gandhian doctrine of ahimsa [non-violence], but he
glorified the use of violence in the revolution to come. "The first
necessity for obtaining the freedom of the masses in the Indian Empire
is the violent and bloody extirpation of the imperial power and the
whole of its state services and apparatus." 137 He called Trotskyism the
"violent and bloody revolutionary programme" 138 The first three
demands of his program were "Violent expulsion of British
imperialism, Violent expropriation ofzamindar's land by peasants, and
Violent expropriation of capitalist means of production." All this was
needlessly provocative, much like the gratuitous rhetoric of the
Stalinists in their ultra-left days. 139 The American Trotskyists were
appalled; they wrote back to Purdy with criticisms of what they
regarded as his "left sectarian" formulations. 140 After that, Purdy toned
down the rhetoric considerably.
136
Hetukar Jha, "Lower-Caste Peasants and Upper-Caste Zamindars in Bihar (19211925): An Analysis of Sanskritization and Contradiction between the Two Groups,"
The Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 14, no. 4 (October-December
1977), p. 549. Starting in the 1920s, low caste peasants would adopt high caste
names, like Singh or Rai, as a gesture of protest.
137
"Provisional draft programme of the Bolshevik-Leninists-Trotskyists of the Indian

Empire," I page typescript, n.d. Attached to his letter to Max Shachtman and James
P. Cannon, 1938. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
138
Yarrumji Eedrupji, Bolshevik-Leninist-Trotskyist Draft Provisional Programme,

p.44.
139
Philip Spratt, for example, once declared, "we shall have to indulge in brutal,
dictatorial methods" and not disguise "the brutal, bloodthirsty side of our
proposals." Quoted in Shashi Joshi, Struggle/or Hegemony in India. 1920-47: The
Colonial SUite, the Left and the National Movement. Vol. I: 1920-34 (New Delhi,
1992), p. 115.
140
Minutes of the "Pan American and All Pacific Bureau," 16 August 1939. Harvard:
Trotsky Collection, bMS Russ 13.1. File 16410.
87
In 1938 Purdy set up "The Friends ofTrotsky Society" in Bombay

in order to translate, print, and distribute "the historical and theoretical
works of Leon Trotsky throughout India." 141 His first publication was
the pamphlet, Lenin s Last Testament. That probably hit like a
bombshell. At that point most Communists had no idea that Lenin,
shortly before his death, proposed a joint struggle with Trotsky to
remove Stalin from his post as party secretary. 142
In 1939 Purdy formed the "Workers Group (Fourth Internationalist),"
consisting of himself and a handful of young followers, including
Mallik Arjun Rao, Murlidhar Parija, and Sitaram Kolpe. At that
point the Congress was debating what position to take in the coming
war. Purdy called for the defeat of all "imperialist powers" and for the
unconditional defense of the USSR. That resonated within Congress. The
Congress Socialist published his position paper on Trotskyist war policy. 143
141
142
143
88
"Friends of Trotsky Society," printed flyer, n.d. Hoover: LSH, box 53. Purdy
appealed to the American Trotskyists and his former comrades in South Africa for
assistance. Letter from R. Lennard [Leon Sapire] and J. Murdoch to J.P. Cannon,
15 September 1938. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 44.
In December, 1922, Lenin, confined to a sickbed after two strokes, dictated a
confidential memorandum to the Politburo in which he candidly sized up each of
the top leaders. Lenin characterized Trotsky as "perhaps the most capable man in
the present C.C." He noted that Stalin "has unlimited authority concentrated in his
hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority
with sufficient caution." It didn't take long for Lenin to decide. In a postscript
added one month later Lenin called for removing Stalin as General Secretary. In
March, 1923 Lenin wrote to Trotsky proposing ajoint struggle against Stalin. That
proposal to Trotsky has been confirmed by the historians, R. V. V. Zhuravlev and
A.N. Nenarokov, in Pravda, 12 August 1988. See Pierre Broue, "Trotsky: A
Biographer's Problems," in Terry Brotherstone and Paul Dukes (eds.), The Trotsky
Reappraisal (Edinburgh, 1992), p. 20. Lenin also confided to his wife,
Krupskyaya, that he intended to "crush Stalin." But less than a week later he was
incapacitated by a massive stroke. In the Political Bureau Stalin and his aJlies voted
to suppress Lenin's testament; Trotsky wanted to publish the Testament within the
party. Krupskaya leaked the document to the west for publication. The Triumvirate
<;Ienied that the testament was authentic. In 1927 Stalin had to admit, in the
authoritative Comintern journal, International Press Correspondence (17
November 1927), that it was "perfectly true" Lenin had, in fact, caJled for
"replacing Stalin." Later Stalin claimed Lenin's Testament was a fabrication.
M.G Purdy, "Is War Inevitable?" Congress Socialist, 4 June 1939, p. 3.
At the 1939 Tripuri session of Congress Purdy met Leslie

Goonewardene, a delegate from the LSSP, who invited him to visit
Ceylon. 144 He went. The apostle of the Untouchable Revolution was
shocked to see that some LSSP leaders, like Leslie Goonewardene,
Reggie Senanayake, and P.H. William Silva, were actually quite
wealthy. After his return to Bombay, Purdy published a pamphlet,
Millionaire Trotskyists of Ceyion, which denounced the LSSP as a
"capitalist party."
Purdy recruited militants, one by one, to his Workers Group. Some
of his devoted cadres included Murlidhar Parija and Mallikarjun
Rao, who later became well-known trade unionists. Lacking money for
a printed journal, they made due with a cyclostyled bulletin, The Spark.
145 In addition, as mentioned above, Purdy met a fellow Trotskyist,
Chandravadan Shukla, who had moved to Bombay in 1940. In early
1941 the two joined forces and named their combined group the
Revolutionary Workers League. 146
Trotskyism in Bengal
In Bengal the Trotskyist movement can be traced back to Ajit Roy,

whom I have already mentioned in connection with C.L.R. James and
the Marxist Group in London. The British government called him "a
pioneer of the Trotskyist movement in India." 147 The son of high-caste
Bengali gentry, Ajit Kumar Mukherji Roy went to England in 1931 to
study law. Like so many in his cohort, he got radicalized, joined the
League Against Imperialism and eventually the CPGB. 148
144
145
146
147
148
Leslie Goonewardene, Letter to the author, 30 April 1975.

Spark 1941. Hoover: LSH, box 54.
Interviews with CV Shukla (Bombay), 13 June 1974; and Sitaram B Kolpe
(Bombay), 19 June 1974. According to Kolpe, the discussions involved
Chandravadan Shukla, his wife Shanta, MG Purdy, SB Kolpe, and AH Tilakar.
National Archives ofIndia, New Delhi: Home (Pol) File No. 717147-PolI (1). "The
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain," p. I.
In this period he wrote a pamphlet, In Defense of the Colonial Revolution, which
was later reprinted by the Revolutionary Communist Party, British Section of the
Fourth International.
89
Roy had a friend, Bal Krishna Gupta, who was studying

economics at London University. "He had one of the brightest political
minds J have ever come across in my life," recalls Roy. 149 Gupta met
C.L.R. James and, like so many others, was dazzled. "He explained that
the Stalinist brand of communism was not communism at all. He then
wanted to know if I had read anything by Trotsky. I said 'no.' He asked
me if I would care to read Trotsky, so I said, 'Why not. Give me the
books.'" Gupta gave him Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution.
That book changed his life. "I remember that I took that book and I
started reading it the next day. The whole day I read it. I didn't go out,
and I didn't go out the day after, except to have my lunch, and I finished
that book in two days. I believe there was a chapter at the very end,
headed 'the theory of Socialism in One Country.' I read it and by the
time 1 finished it I said to myself that the Communists are a bunch of
liars, that the Stalinists were not communists at all, but a bunch of
murderers and traitors to Communism."
Gupta sent Roy to C.L.R. James. "I had rarely come across a finer
political polemicist than C.L.R. James. His attacks on Stalinism were
absolutely devastating." Working out of their shared flat on Boundary
Road, the two produced the journal, Fight. Roy wrote several articles
on political developments in India. ISO As one of his contemporaries
recalled, Roy was "an excellent speaker and popular among workers"
at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. 151
149
ISO
ISI
90
Ajit Roy, "Reminiscences of early days in India and Britain," unpublished

transcript of an interview recorded in December, 1975. Roy tape-recorded his
recollections at the request of his friend, the British Trotskyist historian, Sam
Bornstein. This interview is cited in Sam Bornstein and AI Richardson, Against the
Stream: A History of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain. 1924-1938 (London,
1986), pp. 262-63. The 10-page transcript is in the Socialist Platform Archives
(Richardson Collection), London.
Singh, "The Indian Elections," Fight. vol. 1, no. 6 (May 1937), pp. 11-12 and B.C.
Agarwal, "Congress and the Indian Masses," Fight. vol. 1, no. 11 (November
1937), pp. 11, 15.
Bill Hunter, Lifelong Apprenticeship: The Life and Times of A Revolutionary
(London, 1997),p. 99.
In 1937 Roy returned to Calcutta and contacted a former

schoolmate, Kamalesh Bannerji, who Wa~ active in student politics.
Bannerji, an Anglo-Indian, was a gifted ~riter who contributed to a
Bengali cultural monthly, Purvasha [The East], edited by the poet
Sanjay Bhattacharya and patronized by Humanyun Kabir, a Congress
Socialist activist who later became Union Education Minister. 152
Kamalesh Bannerji also wrote for Natum 'Patra [New Journal], one of
the plethora of "little journals" which sprouted in Calcutta.
Bannerji had a magnetic personality. He'd sit for hours in the Cafe
de Monico and discuss politics with young student activists. One of his
recruits was Indra Sen, a student at Calcutta University. "We had no
sympathy for the CPI," says Indra Sen, "bu!wewanted to know why so
many students did." 153 Another recruit was Dulal Bose, a student at
Vidyasagar College in Calcutta who lat~r earned diplomas in both
French and Russian literature.
Bannerji had a connection with abig Calcutta paper, the
Hindusthan Standard. His plan was for Ajit Roy to return to England,
work as the London correspondent for the newspaper, save some
money, and bring over members of the Calcutta group one-by-one for
training. Roy returned, but the job fell through. Nevertheless, a
London-Calcutta connection had been established, and that was a big
step forward in itself. The Calcutta group became the de facto Indian
arm of the British group. 154
In 1939 the Calcutta group made corit~ct with Onkamath Shastri,
the leader of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of the United Provinces and
152
IS)
154
Letter from the Indian historian Gautam Chattopadhyaya (Calcutta), 21 February

1978. He believes Purvasha might have also been patronized by Saumyendranath
Tagore, the well-to-do critical Communist.
Interview with Indra Sen, 26 April 1974.
"On the Necessity for an Independent Bolshevik-Leninist Organization in Britain,"
Submitted by the Revolutionary Socialist League, July 24, 1938, in National
Bulletin, prepared for the National Conference of the Bolshevik Leninist
Organisations in ,Britain, p. 4. University of Chicago Library.
91
Bihar, who was on the run from the police. Shastri was impressed with
the sophistication of the Calcutta group. "When I first met Kamalesh,"
recalls Shastri, "I became enamoured of his English expressions!" 155
The two began to collaborate.
In March 1940 Philip Gunawardena learned about the Calcutta
group while attending the annual gathering of the Indian National
Congress session, held in Ramgarh. He went to Calcutta and contacted
Kamalesh Bannerji. Through the Calcutta group the LSSP got in touch
with Onkamath Shastri. An important Calcutta-Colombo link was thus
established.
When the CLR lames group in the UK adopted the name
Revolutionary Socialist League, the Calcutta group did likewise. Bal
Krishna Gupta, Ajit Roy's friend, returned to Calcutta after his studies,
became a stockbroker, and slipped money to the Trotskyists. The
Calcutta group put out its first leaflet in the name of the RSL in about
August, 1940. 156 The Calcutta RSL was becoming the embryo of an
Indian Trotskyist group.
Repression in Ceylon
After the Stalinists were expelled, the LSSP mounted an aggressive

campaign opposing the. "imperialist war." 157 Meanwhile, LSSP
organizers were making trouble on the labor front. Upcountry,
plantation workers went on strike on one estate after another. LSSP
organizers, like the young lawyer Edmund Samarakkody, were able
to put themselves at the head of some of these strikes. The British
planters demanded the suppression of the LSSP.
In 1940 Philip Gunawardena, N.M. Perera, Colvin de Silva, and
Edmund Samarakkody were arrested. The party press was seized. LSSP
ISS
Letter from Onkamath Shastri to author, undated, received June 1974.
IS6
Interview with Indra .Sen (Calcutta), I February 1974.
IS)
LSSP leaflets reprinted

October 1942.
92
in
Labor Action [New York], 23 March 1942 and 19
meetings were banned. The LSSP knew in advance that the government
was going to strike. The Central Committee "ruled that Leslie
Goonewardene should go underground while the others should court
arrest." 158 That decision was a big mistake.
The four party leaders were imprisoned in Kandy. More LSSP
members were rounded up. According to plan, LesIie Goonewardene
dropped out of sight. He moved from one hideout to the next, venturing
outside only at night in disguise. Only two comrades knew his
whereabouts at any time. The F.1. Bureau in New York informed the
British section that the LSSP "has been driven entirely underground
and it has been impossible for us to reestabIish effective contact." 159
In November 1940, Governor Caldecott reported to the Secretary
of State that the LSSP would soon be completely smashed. The British
authorities and Ceylonese plantocracy perhaps toasted the demise of
the pesky LSSP. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of its death
were greatly exaggerated.
158
E.P. De Silva, A Short Biography of Dr. N.M. Perera. p. 7. Colvin de Silva gave a
similar explanation to an American Trotskyist visitor to India in 1944: "some of
our comrades went on with their work openly, waiting for the government to come
and get them so as to make a legal test and demonstration before the masses of our
position." Lewis Scott, "Red Passage to India," p. 14:
159
Letter from J.E.B. Stuart [Sam Gordon] to the Btitish Section, F.I., 11 November
1940. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 34.
93
CHAPTER THREE
The Formatioll of an IndoCeylonese Party

"Titanic and terrible event$ are approaching with implacable force."
With those ominous wordS Trotsky began his "Open Letter" to the
Congress Socialists in 1939. I He predicted that the second world war
would be even more cataclysmic than the first. But he also pointed out
that war might again be the mother of revolution, bringing to India and
other colonies "not a redoubled slavery but, on the contrary, complete
liberty." But for that to happen, "a revolutionary party, basing itself on
the vanguard of the prolehiriat, is necessary. Such a party does not yet
exist in India. The Fourthlnternational offers this party its program, its
experience, its collaboratipn."
Less than two months later the war began. The Cey Ion government
clobbered the LSSP. But India was seething with mass unrest. "There
could be little doubt," noted Hector Abhayavardhana, "that should the
British be thrown out of India, independence would come to Ceylon
almost as a logical consequence. The thesis, therefore, emerged in the
LSSP that the revolution In:Ceylon could only develop successfully as
part of the Indian revoh.,ltioti and, since there was as yet no dependable
revolutionary party in India, it was the historic task of the LSSP to
assist in forming such a party within a minimum period of time. The
best means of doing so, it decided, was by building a common
organization for both cotl:p~ries." 2
Leon Trotsky, "Open Letter to the Workers ofIndia," New International, September
1939, pp. 263-66. Reprinted as "India Faced with Imperialist War" (25 July 1939),
in Writillgs o/Leoll Trotsky 1939-40, pp. 28-34.
2
94
Hector Abhayavardhana, "Categories of Left Thinking in Ceylon" (1962), reprinted

in Rajan Phi lips (ed.), Sri Lanka: Global Challellges alld Natiollal Crises
(Colombo, 2001), p. 362.
As we have seen, the LSSP leaders had already made contact with
the Indian Trotskyist groups in Bombay, Calcutta, and the United
Provinces. The LSSP began to dispatch organizers to India, one at a
time, to help these fledgling groups. Leslie Goonewardene, the acting
party leader in the underground organization, was the driving and
directing force behind the India work. 3 The LSSP decided to secure a
beachhead of its own in Madras Province. The LSSP had members who
could speak Tamil, and Madura was just across the Palk Straights from
the northern tip of Ceylon.
First Steps
In May, 1940 the LSSP sent V. Balasingham, who had been a

philosophy student at Ceylon University, to Madura. Two more young
party members, B. M. K. Ramaswamy and his elder brother,
Shanmuganathan, joined him the following year. They developed
contacts with local Congress radicals, notably T.o. Krishnamurthy,
Sholavandan Karuppa Pillai, and Kodimangalam Ponniah Ambalam.
They recruited a group at the American College in Madura, which
included K. Appanraj, who was active in the CPI-dominated Students'
Federation. The LSSP was able to send literature into India covertly
through these students. That soon drew the attention of the police.
According to one report, Balasingham was "smuggling Trotskyist
literature from Ceylon into the Tanjore district." 4
On July 23, 1941 the police arrested Balasingham along with three
of his contacts. The Chief Secretary of the Madras government
informed the Home Department that the Trotskyist nucleus in Madras
Province had bee!1 broken up. 5 The police arrested three more
Hector Abhayavardhana, introduction to Pulsara Liyanage, Vivi: A Biography of

Vivienne Goonewardene (Colombo, n.d.), p. xv.
"Communist Survey No. 3 of 1944," 15 October 1944, p. 5. IOL: LlPJ/12/431.
IOL: LIP J/5/204. Pol. 156/1942.
95
Trotskyists in Madras. After these raids the intelligence bureau

reported that "an underground organization of a potentially dangerous
character was completely broken up." 6
Meanwhile, the LSSP sent another young member, Bernard
Soysa, to Calcutta to work with the RSL (Kamalesh Bannerji group).
Bernard had been an English teacher at St. Thomas Collyge in Matara
before devoting himself to party work full time. Soysa couldn't speak
Bengali, but his comrades knew English, and so he was able to work as
an internal party organizer. He helped the little Calcutta group become
a veritable propaganda machine. In the course of the next year alone
the Calcutta group distributed over 100,000 leaflets in Bengali, Hindi,
and English. The police were watching the group closely. In April, 1941
the Intelligence Bureau reported that Bernard Soysa was probably "the
chief organizer of the Indian group in Bengal and Assam." 7
Doric de Souza was also involved in these forays. With Leslie
Goonewardene forced to stay out of sight, Doric was the man who got
things done. He went to Bombay with Bernard Soysa to meet Murray
Gow Purdy. Purdy introduced the Ceylonese emissaries to his
associate, Chandravadan Shukla. As Bernard recalls, "Shukla had a
manifesto in typescript which was the rationale of his dissidence from
the CPI." g Shukla, who was very bookish in his Marxism, must have
admired the political sophistication of the Ceylonese who were
similarly inclined.
Pre-Conference in Ceylon
Encouraged by these contacts, the LSSP leaders planned to hold a

secret meeting in December, 1940, to which the Indian groups would
be invited to send their representatives. This was intended to be a "preconference" that would lay the basis for future joint work. The leaders
"Communist Survey No. 3 of 1944," p. 5.
"Communist Survey No. 3 of 1944," 15 October 1944, p. 5. IOL: L/PJ/12/431.
Letter from Leslie Goonewardene to author, 30 April 1975.
96
of the LSSP underground-particularly Robert Gunawardena, Doric de

Souza, and Reggie Senanayake---made the preparations. The venue
for the rendezvous was chosen carefully: a "safe" house not too far
from the Kandy jail. That location was not accidental.
The party leaders in jail had done their work well. They had
recruited their jailor, a man named Solomon, to their cause. He was
willing to let them leave their cells and attend this meeting, if they
promised to return before daybreak. And thus in December, 1940, at
the appointed hour, the LSSP honchos walked out of the jail under the
cover of darkness and were whisked off to the meeting.
Security had to be tight. Only nine of the leading Trotskyists
participated in this all-night meeting-Philip Gunawardena, N.M.
Perera, Colvin de Silva, Doric de Souza, Robert Gunawardena, Reggie
Senanayake, Kamalesh Bannerji, Bernard Soysa, and Leslie
Goonewardene. 9 The group resolved to form a single subcontinental
Trotskyist party, representing India, Burma, and Ceylon. That was
certainly a bold, and perhaps questionable proposition. How could a
handful of persecuted Trotskyists possibly build such a far-flung party?
And even if they could, why build a single party for three such diverse
countries? Burma had little in common with Ceylon save Buddhism
(and even that was different). Indeed, there was a huge divide even
between North and South India. Perhaps the Trotskyists were so
smitten with optimism that they did not consider such matters seriously.
The meeting also decided to start "colonizing" India, i.e., sending
comrades to live and work with the Indian Trotskyists on the mainland.
Bernard Soysa was selected to be the first to relocate. Thus began what
would soon become a migration of Ceylonese Trotskyists to the
mainland.
If there were minutes taken at this meeting, they haven't survived. I am indebted to
Leslie Goonewardene for this account of the meeting. According to his memory,
Edmund Samarakkody, the junior of the four LSSP prisoners in Kandy, did not
attend. Letter from Leslie Goonewardene to author, 30 April 1975.
97
The Trotskyist Movement in IlIdia and Ceylof/
Merger in Bengal and United Provinces
After this pre-conference, Kamalesh Bannerji and Onkarnath Shastri

agreed to merge their groups. The combined group took the name
Bolshevik Leninist Party-the name Shastri already used for his group.
As planned, Bernard Soysa relocated to Calcutta. 10 He evidently won
the rspect of the Bengal comrades. In May, 1941 the Deputy InspectorGeneral of the Intelligence Branch of the CID in Calcutta reported that
"a Singalese" was "the leading member" of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party. 11
The Bolshevik Leninist Party had a team of effective student
activists, including Karuna Kant Roy, Purnangshu K. Roy, and
Hiranand Mishra. In 1941 Karuna Roy became something of a local
hero when he intervened to help an Indian girl who was being molested
by four police sergeants. He was roughed up, dragged off to the lockup,
and thrown in a cell.
The Calcutta group sent members on recruiting tours throughout
Bengal. Kamalesh Bannerji went farther afield, to Delhi and Lahore,
contacting like-minded leftists. The police noted the spread of
Trotskyist propaganda, particularly the "well-composed leaflets on
paper of much better quality than is usual for these purposes." 12 The
police evidently had an informer who was pretty close to the party. The
Deputy Inspector-General knew, for example, exactly how much
money the Ceylonese had donated to the Calcutta group. 13
On May 18, 1941 the police raided several houses of party
members in Bengal. The intelligence bureau reported that "a few copies
of objectionable literature were seized." 14 Indra Sen, one of the
10
See "Ceylon Fourth Internationalists Illegalised," Socialist Appeal. vol. 4, no. 8,

May 1942.
11
[OL: LlPJ/12/401. File Pol.(S) 190111941.
12
IOL: LlPJ/12/401. File Pol.(S) 190111941.
13
In July, 1941 the Deputy Inspector-General reported that one of the LSSP leaders
"who is evading detention" visited Calcutta in May, 1941 and "gave Rs. 400 to the
local Trotskyites." IOL: LlPJ/12/401. File Pol.(S) 2514/1941.
14
IOL: LlPJ/12/401. File Pol.(S) 2514/1941.
98
The n"otskyist Movement in In.~ia and Ceylon
organizers, was placed under house arrest. IS With the police breathing
down his neck Bemard Soysa went to Bombay.
Decision to Launch the BLP.
In March, 1941 the Trotskyists took the next step towards unification.
A clandestine conference was to be held in Ceylon. The LSSP secured
a "safe house" on the Hanguranketa Road in Kandy,l1ot. far from the
jail. Bernard Soysa arranged for Onkarnath Shastri, Kamalesh
Bannerji, and Indra Sen to come to Ceylon. At riiidnight on the
appointed day the LSSP prisoners again walked outof the Kandy jail
and were driven off to the meeting. The security was water tight.
At this conference the delegates reached agreement on all
questions and reaffirmed the earlier decision to form an all-India
party. 16 The participants resolved to draft a program and constitution
for the party and to circulate the drafts to the constitubnt"groups in India
and Ceylon for discussion. The job of drafting apparently was assigned
to Leslie Goonewardene and Doric de Souza,twoof the most
theoretically developed members of the LSSP. 17 The 'formal merger
would take place at a conference in Calcutta one month later. 18 M.G.
15
16
Letter from Indra Sent to A.K. [Ajit Roy], n.d. [circa 1945]. Hull: Haston, DJHI
15G/14b.
Letter from Leslie Goonewardene to author, 30 Apri11975. A British government
report from 1947 mentions that "12 Indian delegates of no political standing"
attended this conference. National Archives oflndia: Home (Pol) File No. 7/7/47Poll (I). "Trotskyist Partie~ in India," p. 2. That seems to be misinforn1ation. The
same report mentions that one of the Indians was "Soma Ramamithan of Tanjore."
His name appears no where else, and none of the veterans from that period recall
anyone of such a name.
17
Since no minutes of this meeting survive, we don't know for sure who was assigned
to draft the program. In conversations with the author, HeCtor Abhayavardhana
recollects that Leslie Goonewardene and Doric de Souza were probably the main
authors, though others certainly contributed in the process of amplifying and
revising the drafts.
. ...
18
C.P.S. [Chandravadan Shukla], L.S.G [Leslie Goonewardene}; E.B.S. [Bernard

Soysa}, Letter to the Secretary, Bureau of the Fourth Internati~hal, 29 June 1942.
99
Purdy would be invited to this conference, if he agreed to accept the

majority line. The conference ended before dawn so the prisoners could
return to their cells.
Shortly after this conference, the LSSP held its own meeting in
Matale. Leslie Goonewiudene presided; 42 delegates attended. Unlike
the Kandy conference the month before, the jailed leaders did not
attend; given the larger group, there were more risks that the police
would get wind of the gathering and pounce. That meeting formally
transformed the LSSP into a cadre party with a new program based on
the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. 19 The LSSP
conference also endorsed the decision to colonize India and merge the
LSSP into a larger all-India party. 20
Meanwhile, in India the police raided the homes of more Calcutta
party members. Kamalesh Bannerji, Bernard Soysa, and Doric de
Souza were arrested and interrogated. Concerned about security, the
Trotskyists called off the conference in Calcutta that was to have
formally merged the Indian and Ceylonese groups.
Differences on War Policy
In December, 1941 Hitler launched his surprise attack against Russia.

Stalin had no choice at that point except to cast his lot with the Allies.
The Comintern did another flip-flop. The "imperialist war" was now a
"People's War." The Communist parties had to give all-out support to
the Allies.
19
20
Sections of this program were reprinted as "The Road to Freedom for Ceylon," in
Fourth International (April, 1942), pp. 117-18.
The only opposition came from a very junior comrade, the late Regi Siriwardena
[party name "Hamid"]. As Regi recalls in his memoirs, "I was imprudent and brash
enough to criticize the Indian plan as 'adventurist', urging that the party should
concentrate on strengthening its local base. For this parochial view I was, verbally,
slapped down by N.M., who in the course of his reply said, 'We can't all be as
learned as Comrade Hamid': this from a double-doctor to an undergrad, was irony
indeed." Regi Siriwardena, Working Underground: The LSSP in Wartime
(Colombo, 1999), p. 55.
100
The Fourth International, on the other hand, refused to change

course. "The murderous Fascist attack on the Workers' State," declared
the Indian Trotskyists in a leaflet, "has exploded the Stalinist myththe theory that Socialism can vegetate side by side with capitalism, and
under the stress of this war the masses of the Soviet Union will realise
that the overthrow of the Stalinist incubus will be indispensable for the
successful defense of the Soviet Union. With the resurgence of the
Revolutionary wave and the regeneration of the Soviet state, the
Stalinist bureaucracy, a misfit in an epoch of Revolution, will be hurled
to its rightful place-the dustbin of history." 21
Murray Gow Purdy, however, came to a different conclusion. He
thought that the only practical way to defend the USSR was to support
the Allied war effort. In an internal discussion document he stated, "in
a military sense every blow struck against Hitler is in effect a blow
struck for the Soviet Union." 22 At the same time Purdy called for
"irreconcilable revolutionary defeatism on the political front." He was
trying to have it both ways. If you support British bombers in the skies
over Germany, how can you oppose the British tanks in India?
The other Trotskyists regarded this as a principled difference.
Chandravadan Shukla parted ways with Purdy. 23 His newspaper,
Inkilab, stated, "Only by overthrowing the imperialist robbers in our
country and winning independence can we effectively help Russia. And
if we want revolution, we can't help the government. It is true that the
USSR must defend itself. But that doesn't mean we must aid the
imperialist powers." 24
In February, 1942 Purdy retreated a bit for the sake of unity: "we
withdraw the slogan of 'military aid to Russia on all fronts,' and
21
"25th Anniversary of the October Revolution," BLPI leaflet, n.d. [1942]. Hoover:
LSH, box 52.
22
Seven [Murray Gow Purdy], "A New Viewpoint on this War," Spark [July 1941],
p. 4. Hoover: LSH, box 54.
23
Interviews with C.Y. Shukla, 27 December 1973 and 13 June 1974.
24
"Overthrow Imperialism," Inkilab, no. 9 (March 1942).
101
replace it with 'Only revolution can help us help the Soviet Union." 2S
However, he left the door half open. He suggested, as a "compromise,"
that Trotskyists"help any effort made to collect money or materials to
be sent to the U.S.S.R., irrespective of whatever agency is responsible
for that support being sent." Kamalesh Bannerji, the leader of the
Bengal group; stated that unification with Purdy was impossible as long
as he held what was in effect a pro-war position.
"Colonization" of India
In 1941 Leslie Goonewardene, who had been hiding all alone in a

house at Thimbirigasyaya, left for Bombay, where Bernard Soysa had
moved after the raids in Calcutta. His wife, Vivienne, followed in
December with their 14-month-old child and an elderly ayah [domestic
servant]. 26 Leslie and Vivienne became "Mr. and Mrs. Pinto from
Goa." They rented a house in the industrial suburb of Matunga. It was
not easy to melt into Indian society. They didn't know the local
languages and were always looking over their shoulder to see if they
were being watched by the police.
S.C.C. Anthony PilIai, a Tamil party member, went to Madura to
re-start the work that had been smashed by the police raids the year
before. K. Appanraj, the student at the American College, found shelter
for him near the Harvey Mills. 27 Once the Madura group was
functioning again, PilIai moved north to Madras and assumed the name,
"Lakshmi Narayan Rao." K. Appanraj followed. They developed a
student group at Pachaiyappa's College.
2S
"Our War Line Today," 3-page typescript, 25 February 1942. Hoover: SWP Papers,
box 38.
26
Pulsara Liyanage, Vivi: A Biography of Vivienne Goonewardene (Colombo, n.d.),

pp. 37-38.
27
K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan: Thoyizh Sangha Medai S.C.c. Antoni Pillai Vazhkai
Varalaru. p. 33.
102
The Formation Committee
After a delay of many months, the unity meeting which had to be

postponed was convened secretly in Calcutta in November, 1941.
Present were the three resident Ceylonese organizers (Leslie
Goonewardene, Bernard Soysa, and S.C.C. Anthony Pillai), the
Calcutta leader Kamalesh Bannerji (using the party name
"Chatterjee"), and the new recruit from Bombay, Chandravadan Shukla
("Ramesh Munshi"). 28 Purdy was not invited, given his position on the
war.
They discussed the party program which had been drafted and set
up an interim committee, called, the "Formation Committee of the
Bolshevik Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma." This working
committee included Leslie Goonewardene, Kamalesh Bannerji, and
Onkarnath Shastri. 29 The Committee decided to meet again in
December, 1941 with the aim of adopting the revised program and
making preparations to launch the all-India party a month after that.
The reference to Burma led Trotskyists in New York and London
to assume that a Burmese group already existed and to report the same
in their publications. That was not the case. The name of the party
reflected grandiose aspirations, rather than reality. We know that during
his years in London Philip Gunawardena had worked with the Burmese
communists who would later form the Communist Party in Burma.
However, I have not been able to find documentary evidence showing
subsequent contacts between the LSSP and any Burmese groups. In any
case, even if such contacts existed, they would have been severed when
the Japanese occupied Burma.
28
C.P.S. [Chandravadan Shukla], L.S.a. [Leslie Goonewardene], E.B.S. [Bernard

Soysa], Letter to the Secretary, Bureau of the Fourth International, 29 June 1942.
Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
29
National Archives ofIndia: Home (Pol) File No. 717147-Poll (I). This report states
that Soma Ramanathan of Tanjore was also elected to the Committee. This name
appears nowhere else, to my knowledge.
103
Jailbreak in Ceylon
In February, 1942 the Japanese took Singapore and drove the British
forces from Burma the following month. Japanese subs and cruisers
prowled the Bay of Bengal. On April 5, Japanese planes bombed
Colombo harbor, sinking the British heavy cruisers Dorsetshire and
Cornwall. The LSSP decided that the time had come to remove their
leaders from jail, lest they risk falling into the hands of the Japanese.
Two days later the LSSP spirited the four party leaders and their
warden away from the jail to a "safe house" in Nawala.
The escape brought down renewed repression. The government
arrested a dozen second-tier LSSP activists. The cops combed the
island looking for the fugitives. Holed up, with no opportunity to do
anything, Philip Gunawardena was anxious to get to the scene of the
action in India.
The Party is Launched
In May, 1942 the members of the Formation Committee

(Goonewardene, Bannerji, and Shastri) met with the two Bombay
organizers (Bernard Soya and Chandravadan Shukla) to formally
launch the all-India party. The draft program was adopted. Shukla
proposed that the new party be called Bolshevik Mazoor Party, the
name of his group. The others decided to use the name Bolshevik
Leninist Party of India.
The meeting established a Provisional Committee to replace the
Formation Committee. The Provisional Committee consisted of three
comrades from Bombay (Shukla, Goonewardene, and Bernard Soysa),
two from Calcutta (Kamalesh Bannerji and Indra Sen), and one from
the United Provinces (Onkarnath Shastri). Bernard Soysa was elected
Secretary. The day-to-day leadership would be provided by a Bureau
based in Bombay, consisting of the resident committee members plus
any committee members who might be visiting Bombay.
As the committee name shows, the Trotskyist leaders regarded the
unification as rather tentative. They anticipated holding a regular
104
delegated conference, based on all party members, to ratify these

decisions and elect a Central Committee as soon as circumstances
permitted. In the interim, the constituent groups were given considerable
autonomy in matters not directly related to the party program. Thus,
Shukla could continue to function in the name of the BMP, while the
Ceylon group could continue to use the familiar name LSSP. 30
In June the Bureau of the BLPI wrote to the Secretariat of the Fourth
International in New York with a formal request for affiliation. It's not
exactly clear what happened, but the BLPI received no response. The
BLPI repeated this request on more than one occasion. The comrades
were pleased when they later received publications from New York which
referred to the BLPI as "the Indian section of the Fourth International."
Excluded from the merger, M.G. Purdy fonned his own party, called
the Mazdoor [Workers] Trotskyist Party ofIndia. In May, 1942 Purdy
issued his party's program and began to publish Kranti [Revolution] in
English. 31 By August the Indian police were already keeping tabs on
the Mazdoor Trotskyists. 32 Predictably, Purdy denounced the BLPI as
"petit-bourgeois" and "fundamentally similar and organisationally
connected to the capitalistic Sama Samaj Party of Ceylon." 33 The MTP
stated that workers, and only workers, were allowed to join their party. 34
30
Interview with Chandravadan Shukla, 12 June 1974. Inkilab (voI. 2, no. 11, July
1942) referred to the "Bolshevik Mazdoor (Leninist) Party ofIndia." Another issue
oflnkilab (20 November 1942) used the name, "Gujarat Branch of the Bolshevik
Mazdoor Party of India." Inkilab advertised Bolshevik Leninist as the theoretical
organ of the BMP.
31
Mazdoor Trotskyist Party of India. Draft Programme. Issued by the Provisional

Committee of the Mazdoor Trotskyist party of India, Calcutta. IS May 1942. Hull:
Brynmor Jones Library.
32
Home (Po 1) File No. 717147-Poll (I). "Trotskyist Parties in India," p. 1.
33
The Mazdoor Trotskyist Party of India. Draft Programme, appendix.
34
The MTP membership application form stated, "Any persons who function as
peasants, deriving their living from the exploitation of land, or whom, having lost
their land, still hope to recover it, or possess any ideology towards independent
exploitation of the means of production, or any other person who employs !!!!y
wage labourer in any business, workshop or elsewhere, shall be disqualified from
membership of the party." "Mazdoor Trotskyist Party. India. Application for
Membership," cyclostyled form, I page. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
105
The Program of the BLP.
In its final form the party program was a lengthy document, consisting
of three sections: a summary of the British conquest ofIndia, a Marxist
analysis of the various classes and political groupings in India, and the
action program, based largely on the "transitional" demands listed in
the Transitional Program adopted by the Fourth International in 1938.
Given the sheer size and complexity of the program, it is impossible to
do it justice in a summary. I have reprinted the program in its entirety
in Appendix B. Here I will limit myself to just a few observations.
As noted in the first chapter, Trotsky had generalized his theory of
Permanent Revolution in 1928-29, based on the conclusions he drew
from events in China, plus the lessons of the Russian Revolutions in
1917. In other words, on the basis of historical analogies he postulated
that his theory was applicable to India as well. But he also stressed that
the theory would have to be adapted to the specifics of each country.
Trotsky himself was not an expert on the colonial question and during
the entire 1930s he wrote only a few short articles on India. So the
Ceylonese and Indian Trotskyists were breaking new theoretical
ground with their program.
In 1905 Trotsky derived the hypothesis of Permanent Revolution
from a historic analysis of the "peculiarities" of Russian society. The
BLPI program tries to do the same for India. The first section is an
insightful analysis of how Britain transformed the social foundation of
India. It should be noted that the program goes back to the seminal
writings ofMarx from the 1850s. 35 As emphasized in the first chapter,
Marx did not regard pre-colonial India as feudal; the thesis of "Indian
35
The Ceylonese and Indian Trotskyists evidently relied upon the influential book,
India Today (1940), by the British Stalinist theoretician, R. Palme Dutt, for this
material. As mentioned in Chapter 1, Dutt was the first to publish the key Marx
writings on India in his journal Labour Monthly in 1925. He used those writings in
his first book on India: R. Palme Dutt, Modern India (London, 1926). In that book
Dutt characterized the Indian bourgeoisie as a "counter-revolutionary force." (p. 17).
In India Today, written at the height of the Popular Front, Dutt corrected his previous
deviation and emphasized that the national bourgeoisie had a progressive wing.
106
feudalism" was in fact concocted by the Stalinists in order to

rationalize their line in China during 1925-27. The BLPI program
shows how the "remnants of feudalism" in India were for the most part
created and sustained by British colonialism: the parvenu zamindars,
the Native Princes with short pedigrees, and so forth. The nascent
Indian bourgeoisie was not a class apart from these "feudal" landlords;
it was organically connected to the whole system that impoverished the
vast majority of peasants.
The program maintained that the peasantry would be the driving
force propelling India to revolution. But their struggle would not, and
could not, be limited just to "anti-feudal" goals, like land redistribution,
an end to forced labor, and so forth. Indeed, the virtual class war that
flared in the countryside during the Non-Cooperation movement (192022), the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-32), and the period of
Congress Ministries (1937-39) brought the poor peasants into direct
confrontation with capitalist interests. In all cases the bourgeois
nationalists recognized the threat to their interests. If the masses of
peasants were to achieve even their immediate demands, they would
need to seek allies elsewhere. And for the BLPI that ally could' only be
the urban working class.
In order to satisfy the land hunger of the peasants, the
revolutionary regime would have to encroach upon the property rights
of the zamindars and taluqdars, who would surely retaliate and find
their own capitalist allies. Sooner rather than later the regime would
have to expropriate the landlords, and that would certainly ignite
outright class war in the countryside. Likewise, in order to relieve the
peasants of their debt burdens, the regime would have to attack the
bunyas and usurers, who were merely the front men for the capitalists.
The BLPI program concluded that there would be no basis for a stable
intermediary regime, what the Stalinists called a "revolutionary
democratic dictatorship." And that leads directly to the central thesis of
Permanent Revolution: the belated "democratic revolution" in India
could only be carried to completion through a socialist government of
the working class, supported by the poor peasants and urban middle
,classes.
107
The Trotskyist Movement in India and Geylon
The BLPI did not factor caste into its analysis. That was a real
shortcoming. Murray Gow Purdy had hit upon a very important aspect
of Indian reality wh.en he formulated his thesis of the "Harijan
Revolution." More deft dialecticians could have developed this insight
properly. Another shortcoming in the program was the communal
question. By 1941-42, when this program was drafted and discussed,
the communal issue loomed large in India. 36 The relationship between
the Congress and Muslim League had been strained during the period
of the Congress Ministries. The Muslim League started taking the
Pakistan slogan seriously in 1940. The BLPI program pretty much
ignored this burning issue. So did the rest of the left, for that matter.
The program characterized Congress as "the class party of the
Indian bourgeoisie." That set the BLPI apart from virtually the entire
left. Both the Communist Party and the Socialists called Congress a
multi-class platform; Murray Gow Purdy took that position too. The
BLPI program pointed out that the bourgeoisie paid the piper and called
the tune. The Socialists and Communists would never be able to
"capture Congress." Even Subhas Bose couldn't do that; after he was
elected Congress President in 1939, Gandhi toppled Bose without
raising his saintly voice.
36
The communaL. question had plagued the Indian nationalist movement from the
start. In the beginning the Indian National Congress reached out to the Muslims.
But the Muslim elite were indifferent, if not hostile. Their reasons were easy to
understand. Olltnumbered four-to-one by the Hindus, the Muslims didn't share the
dream of representative government. Sir Sayyid Ahmad pointed out that democratic
elections "would be like a game of dice, in which one man had four dice and the
~ther only one." Quqted in Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Proudest Day:
India's Long Roadio Independence (New York, 1997), p. 77. He denied that
Congress represented the Muslim "nation" within India. Quoted in Aziz Ahmad,
Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857-1964 (London, 1967), pp. 32-33.
The Muslim League was formed in 1905 as a loyalist party seeking to get the best
deal possible for the Muslims. The Muslim League supported the British in WWI.
The defeat of Ottoman Turkey introduced strains. The Khilafat Muslims made
common cause with Gandhi in the Non-Cooperation movement. The communal rift
widened again after Gandhi terminated Non-Cooperation.
108
Given that Congress was a "capitalist party;" the BLPI refused to

join. The program, however, did recognize the need to send comrades
into the Congress to do "fraction work (of course, in all cases under
strict party discipline)," in order to win over the "revolutionary and
semi-revolutionary elements." In addition, the program stated that the
BLPI would "discern the progressive acts of the Congress and support
them, but critically and independently, without confounding its
organisation, programme or banner with the Congress for a moment.
'March separately, strike together'-must be th~ watchword."
The party organizers sent drafts of this program to their American
and British co-thinkers, who reprinted it with glowing endorsements. 37
The British group called the BLPI draft program "a document of which
the whole Fourth International may well be proud and testifies to the
political maturity of the leadership of the Indian party." 38
Reinforcements from Ceylon
In the summer of 1942 Gandhi was getting impatient with the

stalemate. Sensing an impending showdown, Philip and his comrades
decided to get to India as quickly as possible. In July Philip and Colvin
were the first to go. The others followed in groups. Apparently, the
party pulled off this operation without the police even suspecting what
was happening. Only later did the authorities realize that the Ceylonese
Trotskyists had flown the coop "to take part in the 'Quit India'
movement then brewing, the success of whiCh they thought would
ultimately lead to the independence ofCeylon." 39
37
Reprinted with preface, dated September 1942, i.n The Revolution in India.
[Edinburgh] T. Tait Memorial Publication, 1942. Sections reprinted: Fourth
International, March 1942, pp. 82-87 and April 1942,pp. 122-25; October 1942,
pp. 309-14; "Thesis of Indian Fourth Internationalists, 1941," in Workers
International News [London], vol. 5, nos. 3/4, n.d., pp. 24-36 and The World
Revolution and the Tasks of the British Working Cla.ss. London: Workers'
International League, 1945.
38
Workers International News, vol. 5, no. 4 (October-November 1943), p. 1.
39
"Communist Survey No. 3 of 1944,~' 15 October 1944, p. 5. IOL: LlPJ/12/431.
109
The main contingent went to Bombay, the center of the new party.
Philip roomed in a Buddhist hostel and assumed the names "Rup
Singh" and "Almeida." His brother, Robert, became "Vaidya" and
"Prakash." N.M. Perera was "A. Deshmukh." Colvin de Silva used the
name "C. R. Govindan." Govindan was the name ofa Tamil plantation
worker who had been shot in cold blood on the Mool-Oya Estate in
1940. Colvin de Silva represented his widow in court. In those days the
LSSP was proud to be known as a "pro-Tamil" party.
The Bombay Provincial unit (comprising Bombay city and
Ahmedabad) was the largest branch of the BLP!. Chandravadan Shukla
had groups in Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar, including about 20 textile
and press workers. With the influx of the Ceylonese, the Bombay
Provincial unit numbered aound 40 members in late 1942. Shukla
owned a rudimentary printing press which he used to print his Gujarati
newspaper, Inkilab, and a political journal, Bolshevik Leninist. With the
formation of the BLPI the Bolshevik Leninist became the principal
party publication. The first issue that appeared in the name of the BLPI
carried a statement on the war by Leslie Goonewardene. 40
The Ceylonese financed,the new party in Bombay. When the
leaders escaped the island, they had tied gold coins in their sarongs.
After their arrival in Bombayihe Gunawardena brothers arranged to
have land holdings in Ceylon sold and the proceeds were sent to
Madras. Robert Gunawardena"would make the 2-day train trips from
Bombay to Madras to collect the funds. N.M. Perera also supported a
number of comrades in Bombay. As the story goes, while walking the
streets of Bombay he encountered an Indian he had known during his
student days at the London School of Economics. As luck would have
it, he didn't remember Perera:s name. So Perera replied, "Vishwanath."
This man was involved in nbating a new bank. He offered his old
university chum a job. And so one of the most famous Trotskyists of
Ceylon helped to start the People's Bank.
40
K Tilak [Leslie Goonewardene], "The War and Revolutionary Policy," Bolshevik

Leninist, August 1942, reprinted in Permanent Revolution, vo\. 1, no. 1 (January
1943). Author's copy, original in possession ofthe late V. Karalasingham.
110
The Ceylonese police sent detectives up to Bombay to try to spot

the fugitives. The Ceylonese had to keep a very low profile. That was
difficult. Bombay was alive with political excitement. The Congress
Working Committee had called for a mass meeting in Bombay to ratify
the "Quit India" resolution that Gandhi had presented in July, 1942.
The CPI was on the defensive over its support to the British war effort.
Philip Gunawardena had valuable contacts in Congress, Socialist, and
Communist circles, many going back to his days in London. Making
these contacts was a risky proposition, given the police dragnet. The
Ceylonese fugitives found themselves drawn more and more out into
the open. Before long, the Bombay party had recruited a handful of young,
enthusiastic activists, including Ramesh Karkal and Raghuvir Kodial.
The United Provinces Unit claimed some 30 members, mainly in
Kanpur and Benares, with a smattering of supporters in Bihar. The
Kanpur group consisted largely of textile workers, while the Benares
group was students and the Bihar contacts were mainly peasants. One
of the young recruits was Raj Narayan Arya, who was active in. the
Congress student goup at Allahabad University.
In Bengal the BLPI was concentrated in Calcutta and numbered
about 30 members, mainly students and professionals. The Calcutta
group controlled a union in the Lipton's tea factory. More than any
other unit, the Bengal branch had roots and a reputation. The party had
a modest periphery and was well known on the Calcutta left. As the
BLPI leadership reported to the Fourth International, a "practical
united front exists with the Revolutionary Socialist Party (which is the
most important group within the Forward Bloc, and whose leaders
consist of ex-terrorists). The RSP is an ideologically confused, petty
bourgeois party that claims to be Marxist, and is opposing the
imperialist war. One important member of the party has already come
over to us, and there is the prospect of more coming over." 41
In South India the BLPI now had party groups in both Madura and
Madras. More LSSP members, including Lionel Cooray, AlIan
41
C.P.S., L.S.G, E.8.S., Letter to the Secretary, ISFI, June 29, 1942.
111
Mendis. and M. T. Solomon (the renegade jail warden), moved to

Madras. The idea of an lndo-Ceylonese party, in which the Tamils
formed the strat~gic link between the island and the mainland, was
beginning to become a bit more real. 42
In Ceylon the LSSP was a shadow of its former self. Several dozen
party members. including Jack Kotelewala, who had been the Secretary,
were behind bars, and more than a dozen party members had already left
for India. The government had shut down the Samasamajist and the union
newspaper, Kamkaruwa [Worker]. The party had to produce its literature
on a portable press which was moved from one safe house to another to
avoid detection. Doric de Souza and Esmond Wickremasinghe
remained behind in Ceylon to lead the clandestine party.
Looking back on those heady days, some LSSP veterans view the
exodus to India and formation of the BLPI as a futile exercise in
"revolutionary romanticism." 43 In 1942 the handful ofTrotskyists who
formed the BLPI truly believed that "tomorrow is ours." One can debate,
with the benefit of hindsight, whether or not their mission was hopeless.
Whatever their illusions, those determined Trotskyists succeeded, in
the face of daunting odds, and with considerable personal courage and
sacrifice, to at least unfurl the banner of the Fourth International. No
doubt Trotsky, ifhe had lived to see that day, would have been proud.
42
43
K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan: Thoyizh Sangha Medai S.c.c. Antoni Pillai Vazhkai
Varalaru (Chennai, 1995), p. 34.
In 1947 Philip Gunawardena, looking back on the formation of the BLPI, called
the founders "revolutionary romantics" who lacked the political maturity needed
for such an undertaking. D.P.R. GUllawardena, "Bolshevik-Leninists Should Enter
Immediately the Socialist Party ofllldia (CSP)," Internal Bulletin [LSSP], vo!. 1,
no. 2 (March 1947), p. 2. In his memoirs Regi Siriwardena opines that the majority
of the LSSP "suffered from the same illusion that led Trotsky to form the Fourth
International: that the possession of a supposedly correct programme would make
people rally round the party." Regi Siriwardena, Working Underground, p. 65.
Hector Abhayavardhana, on the other hand, has called the Ceylonese odyssey to
India "perhaps one of the few signiiicant episodes in the modem political history
of Sri Lanka." Hector Abhayavardhalla, "Selina Perera-the Forgotten Socialist
Militant," Pravada [Colombo], vo!. 4, nos. 10-11 (1997), p. 19.
112
CHAPTER FOUR
The "Quit India" Revolt

In 1942 the Japanese inflicted a string of humiliating defeats on the
British, starting with the capture of Singapore. The British retreated out
of Burma in disarray and abandoned Chittagong. 1 After temporizing so
long, Gandhi decided to strike at last. He proposed that Congress give
the British an ultimatum-either "quit India" immediately or face mass
satyagraha. The sly fox hoped to play the Americans against the
British. 2 In July, 1942 the Congress Working Committee endorsed
Gandhi's proposal and summoned the All-India Congress Committee
to ratify that decision.
The Stalinists played a devious game. P.C. Joshi vowed never to
support the British against "our great patriotic organization." But
behind the scenes he was offering to support the war effort in any
The American military produced a secret report, "The Campaign in Burma," which
stated "From the start the British forces had executed one withdrawal after another
before the advance of the Japanese ... the main body of the British made little or no
efforts to stand and give battle ... the piecemeal defense was a piece of stupidity
which resulted in tens of thousands of casualties to the troops, the complete
destruction of every town and city in Burma, and the loss to both the Chinese and
the British of a vast amount of irreplacable installations and equipment." Quoted in
M.S. Venkataramani and B.K. Shrivastava, Quit India: The American Response to
the 1942 Struggle (New Delhi, 1979), pp. 178-79. Field Marshal William Slim,
who was then the Commander of the Fifteenth Indian Corps in Calcutta, described
the disarray of the British military and their plans "to destroy, if necessary, the many
installations in Calcutta that would have been invaluable to an invader." Quoted in
M.S. Venkataramani and B.K. Shrivastava, Quit India, p. 178.
After meeting with Gandhi in June, 1942, Jawaharlal Nehru sent a secret report to
the US President and Secretary of State, in which he reassured them that "Gandhi
does not intend starting any big movement unless he is forced to do so by British
policy." Quoted in M.S. Venkataramani and B.K. Shrivastava, Quit India, p. 170.
In his interviews with American newsmen around the same time, Gandhi stated that
"America can insist on the implementing of the Indian demand as a condition of
her financing Britain." Quoted in Harijan, 14 June 1942.
113
way. 3 He promised that the CPI would only make "constructive

criticism" ofthe government. 4 "It is indeed certain," wrote the Director
of Intelligence, "that a successful mass movement, such as Gandhi
appears to contemplate, would present an almost irresistible lure to the
communists who can ill afford to break completely with the
Congress." 5 He was wrong.
On the afternoon of August 7 the Congress Working Committee
convened in Bombay. A huge throng packed the Gowalia Tank Maidan
to hear the speeches. The historic "Quit India" resolution called for "a
mass struggle on non-violent lines on the widest possible scale" to
force "the immediate ending of British rule in India." Under the glare
of the spotlights the CPI members in the Congress Working Committee
opposed that resolution. Out in the crowd members of the BLPI
distributed a leaflet calling for support to any anti-imperialist struggle
that Congress launched, while warning that Gandhi might compromise.
The leaflet advocated "a mass general political strike against British
imperialism," backed up by rural no-tax and no-rent campaigns "on the
widest possible scale, leading to the seizure of land by the peasants
through Peasant' Committees." 6 The Congress newspaper commended
the Trotskyists for being "all out for immediate independence." 7
On May 12, 1942 P.C. Joshi met a senior Intelligence Bureau officer, Ghulam
Ahmed, to discuss his plans, which he had set forth a month earlier in a ten-page
confidential memorandum, dated 23 April 1942. The Stalinists used to claim that
such documents were anti-Communist fabrications. Unfortunately for the Stalinists,
the secret government files are no longer secret. In his book, A History of Indian
Freedom Struggle (1986) E.M.S. Namboodiripad, the CPI(M) leader, had to admit
that the CPI did in fact "establish contact with the government."
IOL: LlPJ/12/431. File poLeS) 1737/1942.
IOL: LlPJ/12/431. File poLeS) 1737/1942.
"Revolution: The Only Way to Smash Imperialism," printed leaflet. Hoover: LSH,
box 102. Excerpts reproduced in Fourth International. July 1943, p. 221. The
Chief Secretary ofthe Bengal government made a point of mentioning in his report
to the Home Office that the Congress leader, Haripada Sarkar, had this BLPI leaflet
in his possession when he was arrested in Calcutta. IOL: LlPJ/12/402. File poLeS)
938/D/97-109.
"The Real Fifth Column in India," Harijan. 9 August 1942, p. 271.
The following evening Gandhi electrified the crowd with the battle
cry, Karenge ya Marenge! ["Do or Die!"]. But he gave no clear directions.
That suggests that Gandhi didn't really intend to launch a mass
struggle, or not at that point anyway. He had made it clear all along that
he wanted to negotiate a settlement. Just a few days earlier he stressed
that the passing of the Quit India resolution would not be the signal for
the launching of a mass movement. 8 He stated that he would send a
letter to the Viceroy and await a reply. "After my last night's speech," he
said to his private secretary on the morning of August 9, "they will
never arrest me." 9 The Mahatma was wrong. Shortly after daybreak
Gandhi and the entire Congress high command were on their way to jail.
"Mob Violence"
As news of the arrests spread in Bombay, agitated crowds gathered in

the streets. The police were pelted with stones and bottles. Trams and
buses were forced to halt. Government buildings were set ablaze. The
city authorities called out the army. By evening gunfire rattled through
the streets. The British had jailed the very men who could have
restrained the mobs. The Quit India revolt had begun.
The Congress Socialist leaders met secretly in Bombay and
decided to go underground to lead the revolt. With the Congress high
command removed, the Socialists had the reins of leadership in their
hands at long last. But they deliberately decided to dissolve their own
party and carry out the struggle simply in the name of "the underground
Congress." That was not some kind of ruse. Most of the Socialist
leaders embraced Gandhi's vision ofa mass non-violent revolution. 10
The Hindu, 8 August 1942.
Dinanath Gopal Tendulkar, Mahatma, vo!. 6 (Bombay, 1953), p. 216; and Rajendra
Prasad, Autobiography (Bombay, 1957), p. 538.
10
The Socialists set up an underground radio transmitter in a Bombay hideout and

every evening broadcast news of the movement. Ram Manohar Lohia, regarded as
the brains behind these broadcasts, spoke of the mass movement as a new kind of
revolution. Syamalendu Sengupta and Gautam Chatterjee (eds.), Secret Congress
Broadcasts and Storming Railway Tracks During Quit India Movement (New
Delhi, 1988), p. 73.
115
In contrast the BLPI issued a call to action that stressed the

necessity for revolutionary leadership. 11 "We not merely support
unconditionally the movement towards National Independence even
under the leadership of the Congress, but we bear the whole brunt of
the struggle and, in the fullness of time, wrest the leadership from the
Congress High Command which is bound to prove unequal to the
historic task before us, for it has been already weighed in the balance
and found wanting and as such, in future is not likely to fare better."
The Trotskyists plastered walls with revolutionary posters. 12
The BLPI appealed to the troops. "Do not be a party to a blood
bath of Indian masses," one leaflet exhorted. "Revolt against the
dehumanising slave-code of military discipline." 13 Another leaflet
explained that only revolution could save the USSR and defeat
fascism. 14 In his memoirs Robert Gunawardena recalled his dangerous
missions to distribute these leaflets. Had he been caught, he could have
been shot.
The CPI, on the other hand, ran around trying to restore the peace
and get the workers back to work. The CPI prepared secret reports that
documented how Communists were able to prevent hartals and
sabotage in Kanpur, Bombay, Jamshedpur, Calicut, Lahore, and
Madras. 15 The Director of Intelligence reported that "the most
satisfactory feature in their recent utterances has been an unequivocal
condemnation of Gandhi's new movement." 16 The CPI was duly
11
12
"March Separately, Strike Together," leaflet signed by the BLPI, one page, n.d.
Hoover: LSH, box 52.
13
"The Real Nature of the Anti-Fascist Peoples' War," printed leaflet signed BLPI,
n.d. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
14
"What is to be Done? Revolution - The Only Way of Defeating Fascism," printed

,leaflet signed BLPI, n.d. [1942]. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
15
These reports were delivered to Sir Reginald Maxwell and forwarded to Additional
Secretary ~ir Richard Tottenham. These reports became part ofthe National Archives
of India after independence. Who knows what else was documented in the
thousands of other files that the British bureaucracy burned just before they quit India.
16
IOL: LIPJ/12/43 1. File Pol.(S) 1737/1942,
116
rewarded. When all meetings were banned in Bombay, the CPI was
allowed to hold pro-war rallies. 17
Rebellions in the Countryside
Within days the disturbances spread across India. The storm center was
Bihar and the United Provinces, the Congress heartland. A magistrate's
report on the situation in Begusarai (Bihar) was typical: "The news of
the arrest of the all-India leaders caused wide agitation, especially
among the Congressites, and the student's section ... young volunteers
were deputed to villages to organise volunteers ... From the afternoon
the rural mob began to take the upper hand and the student section
began to loose prominence ... Then the situation was no longer in the
hands of the Congress." 18
Acting pretty much spontaneously, villagers uprooted train tracks
and cut telegraph and phone lines. In Madhuban a mob used elephants
to break down the walls of the police station. In Chandi thousands of
peasants, brandishing spears and knives, forced the police to flee. In
Monghyr the District Magistrate reported that the police "would have
been torn to pieces" if they returned. 19 Even without a purposeful
leadership, the peasants pressed their own demands and in several
places formed local "Gandhi Raj" governments. Viceroy Linlithgow
cabled London, "I am engaged here in meeting by far the most serious
rebellion since that of 1857. . . Mob violence remains rampant over
large tracts of the countryside." 20
The BLP. in Action
After the initial explosion, the BLPI group in Bombay focused its
efforts on making contact with other underground leftists. It's not clear
17
18
19
20
People's War, 23 August 1942.

Vinita Damodaran, Broken Promises: Popular Protest, Indian Nationalism and the
Congress Party in Bihar 1935-1946 (Delhi, 1992), pp. 224-25.
Vinita Damodaran, Broken Promises, pp. 243.
Arun Bhuyan, The Quit India Movement (New Delhi, 1975), p. 94.
117
to what extent the BLPI was able to contact the underground Congress
militants. 21 The BLPI informed the Secretary of the Fourth
International in New York that "the existence and line ofthe party became
widely known in political circles." 22 The Director of the Intelligence
Bureau believed that the Trotskyists were influencing the Congress.
"Distinct traces of Fourth International influences," he wrote, "have been
discernable in many recent illegal Congress bulletins and pamphlets." 23
The BLPI recruited student activists in Bombay, like Vinayak
Purohit, a firebrand who had been arrested for attacking a policeman
and subsequently joined an underground Marxist study class. The
Trotskyists also recruited a number of young Royists, such as S.P.
Udyawar, who were opposed to their party's collaboration with the
government. It had been revealed that M.N. Roy was being paid 13,000
rupees a month for his pro-war services. 24 "These former Royists," writes
Hector Abhayavardhana, "were the real sinews of the BLPI in Bombay." 25
The Bombay Trotskyists organized an active workers group in the
General Motors factory, a hotbed during the Quit India revolt. The
21
22
23
24
2S
Philip Gunawardena, the Ceylonese leader who was in Bombay at that point,
personally knew a number of prominent Congress activists from his old days in
New York and London. One of his old associates was N.B. Parulekar, the
prominent Bombay Advocate who led a group of students to ransack the Bombay
High Court. Philip knew Parulekar in New York, where he was associated with the
New York Chapter of the Hindustan Association of America, an offshoot of the
Hindustan Ghadr Association. IOL: L/PJ/12/33.
K. Tilak [Leslie Goonewardena), Letter to the Secretary, International Secretariat,
4th International, 25 July 1944. Typed, 2 pages. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
IOL: L/PJ/12/484. File Pol.(S) 228211942.
The Labour member of the Governor General's Executive Council disclosed the
details in the Central Assembly in April, 1944. Dipti Kumar Roy, Trade Union
Movement in India: Role of M.N. Roy (Calcutta, 1990), pp. 90-9\. It was also
rumored that the CPI was getting government money, too. We now know from declassified government files that the CPI was spendingfive times its income just to
publish Peoples' War. LlPJ/12/431. File Pol.(S) 1737/1942.
Hector Abhayavardhana, "Selina Perera - The Forgotten Socialist Militant," p. 20.
Also interview with V. Karalasingham, 22 May 1974.
118
union leader, H.R. Pardiwala, a staunch Congress Socialist, had been

arrested on August 19, 1942. The Trotskyists started a cyclostyled
factory bulletin in Hindi and English. The Director of the Intelligence
Bureau took special note of these activities in one of the most critical
war plants. 26 The police stepped up their efforts to find the
underground Trotskyists.
In Calcutta the BLPI joined a "United Socialist People's Front,"
which included the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the Forward Bloc,
and the Congress Socialists. 27 According to government reports, the
front carried out sabotage. As one BLPI "member recalled, "We opposed
wanton destruction of trams and government property as tactically
premature and adventurist." 28 The Calcutta group distributed tens of
thousands of agitational leaflets. The police cracked down. Kamalesh
Bannerji was arrested and locked up for the duration of the war. His
right-hand man, Indra Sen, was interred in his home far from Calcutta.
In the United Provinces and Bihar the BLPI groups issued leaflets
and led demonstrations in Mirzapur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad,
Benares, and Azamgara. In September, 1942 the police, acting on a tip
from the Communist Party, arrested Onkarnath Shastri, the senior BLPI
leader in those parts. 29 In Jamalpur Sitanshu Das, a student militant
who had come around the BLPI earlier in Calcutta, issued leaflets on
his own. "In Jamalpur near Monghyr," states one contemporary
government report, "some very objectionable leaflets purporting to
emanate from the Bolshevik Leninist party, otherwise known as the
Fourth International, were found." 30 Several of these youthful
26
"Communist Survey No. 3 of 1944," 15 October 1944, p. 5. IOL: LIPJ/12/431.

File Pol.(S) 2002/1944.
27
IOL: L/PJ/12/402. File Pol.(S) 938/D/134-143.
28
Interview with Hiranand Mishra, 7 February 1974.
29
Letter from Raj N arayan Arya to author, 31 March 1997.
30
Government of Bihar, Freedom Movement Files-1943-File No. 79, reproduced in

Partha Sarathi Gupta (ed.), Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for
Independence in India. 1943-44. Part 3 (Delhi, 1997), p. 2336.
119
Trotskyists were eventually arrested and imprisoned in the Patna camp

jail. 31
In South India the BLPI cadres led student demonstrations in both
Madura and Madras. They then went underground along with their
Congress sympathizers, notably T. G. Krishnamurthy and his group,
who were very sympathetic to the Fourth International and helped to
win over other radical Congressmen throughout the province. One
conservative Congressman complained about objectionable leaflets in
Madura issued by "the so-called Fourth International." 32
Guerrilla Resistance
When the unrest died down in the cities, the Congress radicals shifted
their activities to the countryside. The Socialists formed armed bands
in V.P. and Bihar, called Azad Dastas, to harass the British, disrupt the
war effort, and incite rural revolts. Jayaprakash Narayan, the Socialist
leader who had just escaped from jail, set up a guerrilla training camp
in Nepal. The Azad Dastas carried out dacoities (robberies) to finance
their activities, a practice that the early Indian terrorists had also used.
The Stalinists attacked the BLPI, and everyone else who supported
the Quit India revolt, as "Fifth Columnists." 33 People s War called
Trotskyists "criminals and gangsters who help the Fascists." 34 P.C.
Joshi demanded that CPI members treat Trotskyists as "traitors" who
had to be "driven out of political life and exterminated." 35 In response
JI
"Report of the Provisional Central Committee of the BLPI," 20 September 1944.

The BLPI sent copies of this report to the American and British sections of the
Fourth International. The British RCP reprinted the document in an internal
bulletin, News Commentary. vol. 1,4 August 1945. Hull: Haston, DJH/15G/14b.
J2
JJ
Report dated 15 September 1942, reprinted in P.N. Chopra (ed.), Quit India
Movement: British Secret Documents (New Delhi, 1986), p. 162.
IOL: LIPJ/12/431. File Pol.(S) 236511943.
J4
Peoples War, 7 March 1943,4 June 1943, and 12 September 1943.
JS
IOL: LlPJ112/485. File Pol.(S) 135311943; and IOL: LlPJ/12/485. File Pol.(S)
1353/1943.
120
the underground BLPI organization blasted the CPI as "pimps and

procurers for British Imperialism" and "confusionist disruptors,
government hirelings, and police agents." 36
In the Bolshevik Leninist Philip Gunawardena blasted the CPI. He
stated that while Trotskyists do not advocate sabotage as a political
program, they solidarize with the masses in revolt. "The BLP of India
supports unreservedly the struggle against British Imperialism, including
all acts of sabotage in which the masses participate." 37 He declared
that the BLPI, if it had the resources, would seek to "give a leadership
to these scattered peasant revolts by actually participating in them."
Many Indians despised the CPI because it took orders from Russia,
rather than being true to Mother India. 38 The charge of treason
continues to haunt the CPI. The Trotskyists criticized the CPI for the
opposite reason-that it was betraying Soviet internationalism: "Unlike
the minions of the Kremlin boss, the 10shis and Mukherjees of India,
who have degenerated to the position of imperialist agents, we stand
for independent working class aid to the Soviet Union and will not for
36
"Stalinist Traitors Unmasked," printed double-sided leaflet, n.d. [August 1942].

Hoover: LSH, box 52. Also Fourth International, July 1943, p. 22l.
37
Rup Singh [Philip Gunawardena], Bolshevik Leninist, February 1943. Hoover:

LSH, box 52. Some BLPI leaders thought Philip was too categorical in endorsing
sabotage. Doric de Souza, for example, noted that sabotage "bears the c1assimpress of the petit-bourgeois, and offers (of itself) no challenge to the property
relations of the established order." He also questioned whether the BLPI would
"actually participate" in peasant revolts. "In the absence of proletarian struggle on
a revolutionary scale in the cities of India, no party can bring 'working class
leadership' artificially to the village struggle: in the process such a party would
only de-class itself as the CP of China became a peasant party from 1926-29
onwards." S. Livera [Doric de Souza], "Working Class Leadership of the
Peasantry," Permanent Revolution, January-March 1944, pp. 6,7,9. Author's copy.
It seems that the American Trotskyists also were wary of Philip's generalizations.
The editors of Fourth International reprinted Philip's article, minus the offending
passage quoted above (with no explanation). Rup Singh, "The August 1942
Struggle," Fourth International, October 1944, pp. 309-14.
38
IOL: LlPJIl2/43l. File Pol.(S) 2333/1942. One recipient of this report in the India
Office wrote across the top: "Poor things! They will soon be in as false a position
in India as the British government is!"
121
a moment renounce our struggle against British Imperialism ... The

ultimate defense of the Soviet Union will be determined on the
correlation of forces in the international arena. This calls for an
uncompromising struggle against the imperialist bourgeoisie and an
intensification of the class struggle leading to Socialist Revolution in
the belligerent countries." 39
At the same time the BLPI criticized the Socialists for their lack of
revolutionary program: "their methods did not differ in quality from
the Gandhians. They only substituted violent action for non-violence.
That was all. They provided no program whereby the masses could be
led along the path of struggle." 40 Summing up, the BLPI concluded
that the Socialists, for all their heroism, offered "only an aggressive
nationalism." 41 Given the lack of leadership, the revolt "never really
went beyond the proportions of a violent political demonstration, and
when it met the full blast of organised state repression, it collapsed." 42
Purdy, the Trotskyist Dacoit
The Quit India revolt was a dream come true for Murray Gow Purdy,
the apostle of violent revolution who had his own group separate from
the BLPI. On the eve of the revolt the Purdyites issued a leaflet that
pledged their support for any anti-imperialist struggle and called for
the formation of strike committees to prepare for a "workers satyagraha
general strike."43 The next day, when the violence started, the Purdyites
went underground and quickly produced the first issue of a newspaper,
39
"Twenty Fifth Anniversary of the October Revolution," n.d., signed by the BLPI.
40
H.A. Vardhan [Hector Abhayavardhana], The August Struggle and its Significance
(Bombay, 1947), p. 5. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
41
"The Indian Struggle," Permanent Revolution, April-June 1943, p. 56. Hoover:

LSH, box 53.
Gafur Khan, "Lessons of the First Phase of the Anti-Imperialist Struggle,"
Permanent Revolution, January 1943, p. 7. Author's copy, original in possession of
the late V. Karalasingham.
42
43
"Support for Revolutionary Satyagraha: Mazdoor Trotskyist Party Programme," 8

August 1942. Hull: Brynmor Jones Library.
122
Kranti [Revolution]. 44 The Purdy group called for the immediate

formation of "Revolutionary Satyagraha Freedom Committees," which
were to gather together "every class from capitalist to sweeper," united
around the sole demand for India's freedom. 45
The Purdy group tried to foment labor strikes. In Hyderabad

Mallikarjun Rao participated in a militant strike in the Nizam State
Railway. The Purdy group exhorted the strikers to commit sabotage.
"Damage the engines, tear up the rails, and at any cost prevent any
railway from working for a single day ... even if costs blood and life." 46
In the United Provinces one of his recruits, Ambika Singh, a
notorious revolutionary nationalist, formed a guerrilla group that
operated in the area around Jaunpur and Sultanpur. Armed with homemade pistols, they robbed postal stations to finance their activities. 47
The police reported that "a gang of Congress terrorists under Ambika
Singh has instituted a minor reign of terror." 48 Several of his men were
killed or captured in clashes with the police. 49 Ambika himself was
arrested in 1943, sentenced to death, and later pardoned. 50
Purdy was no armchair radical. He, too, carried out "revolutionary
expropriations." One heist in Bombay was quite sensational. 51 On the
night of April 23, 1944 Purdy and an accomplice, Edward Dennis Gee,
44
45
46
47
Kranti, vo!. 1, no. 1 (August 1942), p. 1. Hull: Brynmor Jones Library.
"Revolutionary Satyagraha Freedom Committee," n.d. [1942]. Hull: Brynmor

Jones Library. Also "Mazdur Tra. Parti Krantikari Satyagrahala madat karate," 2sided leaflet, n.d. Hull: Haston, DJH/15G/14a.
"From the Mazdoor Trotskyist Party of India. To our Comrades on Strike on the
Nizam State Railway," n.d. Hull: Brynmor Jones Library.
IOL: LIPJ/5/271. File Po!. 251111943.
48
Report dated 20 October 1942, reprinted in P.N. Chopra (ed.), Quit India
Movement: British Secret Documents (New Delhi: Interprint, 1986), p. 239. MTP
leaflets are cited pp. 176-77.
49
IOL: LIPJ/51271. File Po!. 3212/1943.
50
Arun Chandra Bhuyan, The Quit India Movement (New Delhi, 1975), p. 131.
51
Times o/India, 19 February 1946.
123
a deserter, got dressed up as police officers, went to the home of a

wealthy diamond dealer, knocked on the door, and presented him with
a warrant that charged him with having business dealings with the
enemy. The poor man protested his innocence. Purdy and Gee
demanded to see proof in the form of his business papers. And so the
victim took the duo to his shop in Mumbadevi, opened the safe, and
reached in to retrieve the papers. Gee knocked him unconscious, and
they fled with over Rs. 200,000 in gold and currency. 52
Five months later the police nabbed Purdy and Gee and
subsequently found their safe deposit boxes containing "currency
notes, gold sovereigns, and American coinage to the value of about Rs.
90,000, some chloroform, gelignite, detonators and a diagram of a
home-made grenade." 53 Purdy was charged with "dacoity" and
"possession of high explosives." The government saw this as a
"startling reminder of the danger which representatives of the Fourth
International may present to security." 54
Standing trial at Bombay High Court, Purdy was defiant. When the
judge ordered his chains removed in the courtroom, Purdy retorted,
"What does it matter if I am in chains when all of India is in chains!"
The common jury found the two "not quilty." The judge called for a retrial. In January, 1946 a special jury found Purdy and Gee guilty of
impersonating a public servant, using a forged document, robbery, and
causing hurt. Purdy was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment
and Gee to five years of the same. 55
On the trip back to the jail Purdy asked his guards if he could use
the toilet in a wayside restaurant. Allowed to go unguarded, he slipped
through the window and escaped. He and one of his comrades,
Mahendranath Singh, hid in a hut at Malad, 15 miles outside of Bombay.
A week later the police found them. Purdy was imprisoned in the Arthur
52
Times of India, 6 March 1946.
53
54
55
Free Press [Bombay], 18 February 1946.
124
Road Jail. As fate would have it, his right hand man, Mallikarjun Rao,
was there. In April Purdy and Rao, along with two other inmates,
attempted to escape. 56 Purdy jumped the prison wall and hid in a garbage
truck. Arrested again, he was taken to the Yeravda Central Prison in
poona. The Purdyites formed a defense committee, endorsed by
prominent labor leaders. 57 The BLPI also demanded Purdy's release. 58
But the government regarded Purdy as a menace. So did the Congress.
purdy was one of the last political prisoners to be released in 1947 and
the new government promptly booted him out of the country. 59
56
"Two Years Jail for Purdy," Times of India, 1 March 1946.
57
The President of the Purdy Defense Committee was Abid Ali Jafferbhoy, a leading
Congressman and President of the B.E.S.T. (Bombay Electric Supply and
Tramways Company) union. Jafferbhoy later became Deputy Labor Minister after
Independence. Other Committee members included: Ashok Mehta, the prominent
Congress Socialist; Pratap Singh, the editor of Daily Hindustan; and P.v. Gadgil,
editor of Lokmanya.
58
"Stop This Discrimination - Release Purdy Immediately!" Spark, no. 9 (mid-July

1946), p. 5.
59
Purdy was deported from India in December 1947. In London, Purdy contacted the
Revolutionary Communist Party, the British section of the FI. Purdy was critical of
their "easy-going smug complacency." He felt they were soft on Stalinism and
afraid to use violence against the fascist fringe groups. "In other words, as it seems
to me, the very basis of Trotskyism and the Fourth International is being gradually
abandoned." The Socialist [Bombay], 23 May 1948. Purdy issued an "Open Letter"
to the RCP and the FI. "Petty-Bourgeois Betrayal ofTrotskyism: To the Secretariat
of Fourth International," Socialist, 1 August 1948, p. 5; also "Open Letter to the
Secretariat and Masses Fourth International," 3 May 1948. Hull: Haston, DJHI
ISG/S. He was very critical of the FI leadership, and in particular the American
SWP, which "committed several blunders, to say the least" and "failed to give a
correct leadership." Socialist, 6 June 1948. His main complaint was that the FI had
supported the LSSP, "essentially a middle class party." Disillusioned, Purdy
withdrew from active politics. No one seems to know what happened to him.
According to one account, he returned to South Africa and got rich. Letters from
Baruch Hirson to author, 23 April 1992 and 21 September 1997. He states that this
information comes from Fanny Klenerman (the first wife of Frank Glass) in an
interview she gave late in life. He notes that her memory was very poor at this
point. "Fanny says that Purdy returned to South Africa and made a lot of money.
Fanny could be venomous in her comments, and given her dislike of Purdy this
must be treated with caution."
125
"Extremely Objectionable" Propaganda
The Fourth International championed the Quit India revolt. "The Indian
Revolution is on the order of the day," declared the British Trotskyists.
"We must understand that every blow struck by the Indian workers
against British Imperialism is a blow against our own exploiters." 60
The French Trotskyists, working deep underground, hailed the struggle
in India in La Verite, their newspaper. 61
The International Executive Committee, based in New York ,
issued a ringing manifesto. 62 "As Russia was the weakest link in the
imperialist chain in 1917, so India is today /" The manifesto
emphasized that "National liberation can only be won through the
agrarian revolution" and raised the slogans, "Abolition oflandlordism"
and "Liquidation of agricultural indebtedness." Since Congress has
always protected the zamindars, "only the industrial proletariat can
lead the peasantry in the revolution."
The manifesto raised the call for a Constituent Assembly in India.
That had been lacking in the BLPI propaganda. "Only the successful
revolution of the workers', peasants' and soldiers' committees against
the British Raj and its native allies can guarantee the establishment of a
Constitutent Assembly." In other words, this democratic stage will be
realized only through the unfolding socialist revolution in India, which
will culminate in a "Workers' and Peasants' Government."
The British government regarded this manifesto as "extremely
objectionable." 63 The India Office warned the Home Office that "even
if only a limited number of copies get out of the country, they can do a
60
61
"End Indian Slavery," Militant [Socialist Left of the Labour Party], n.s. no. 9
(September 1942), p. 1; and Ajit Roy, "Some British 'Friends' of India," Fourth
International, March 1943, p. 95.
"Vive l'independence des Indes!," La Verite, no. 30 (10 April 1942); and "Les
Indes en lutte pour leur liberte," La Verite, no. 37 (15 September 1942).
62
The manifesto was reprinted in May, 1943 by the Bengal Committee ofthe BLPI as
the first pamphlet in its Fourth Internationalist Library series.
63
IOL: LlPJ/12/649.Files Pol.(S) 1984/1942 and Pol.(S) 1967/1942.
126
great deal of damage." The government instructed the Indian postal

authorities to confiscate the issues of Fourth International and the
British Trotskyist newspaper, Socialist Appeal, which reprinted the
manifesto. The government debated whether or not to ban Socialist
Appeal outright. The Fourth International had become a thorn in their side.
The Smash
The government, noting that the Trotskyists have received "a measure
of prominence lately," stepped up their manhunt. 64 The Communist
Party willingly offered its services. The CPI got wind of the fact that
the BLPI was leading a Marxist study group in Bombay. The
Communists planted a student, named Kulkarni, in the group. 65 The
information he provided was passed to the police. The government now
had the BLPI leaders in its sights, thanks to the Stalinists:
At that point N.M. Perera shared a communal flat in Sir Harmakar
Road with several comrades, including Robert Gunawardena and
Lionel Cooray. Perera got suspicious that his employers were on to
him. He quit his job and got another flat in a working-class area known
as Girangaon. A party sympathizer arranged for him to interview for a
job at a college in Ahmedabad. When he left Bombay, Phi lip
Gunawardena and his wife, Kusuma Gunawardena, plus five
comrades who had been sharing their place, moved to Perera's empty
flat, thinking it was safer. They were wrong. Thanks to the CPI, the
Bombay police had that new place under surveillance, too.
Before dawn on July 15, 1943 a police party arrived and knocked
on the door. Thinking it was the milkman, Kusuma got up an opened
the door. The cops barged in, brandishing revolvers. The Trotskyists
were ordered to lie on the floor while the police searched the place.
64
IOL: LlPJ/12/484. File Pol.(S) 228211942; and Home (Pol) File No. 717147-Poll
(I). "Trotskyist Parties in India," p. 2. National Archives of India, New Delhi.
6S
The BLPI documents do not give his full name. It might have been Rajaram Gopal
Kulkami, who was a Communist Party supporter and leader of the North Bombay
Students' Union. But that is speculation on my part.
127
They found a scrap of paper with information revealing N.M. Perera's

whereabouts. He was nabbed later in Ahmedabad. They police arrested
the Gunawardenas, Hector Abhayavardhana, and five young Indian
comrades. 66
The police also knew where Leslie and Vivienne Goonewardene
were living in Matunga. At that point Colvin de Silva and Selina Perera
were roomates there as well. But Vivienne had already become
suspicious when her ayah [nursemaid] mentioned that a man had been
following her. Vivienne quickly packed up, and as soon as the others
returned, they all fled. When the police party arrived, the flat was
empty. They waited. Bemard Soysa arrived later and walked into the trap.
The Stalinist spy came to the police station and identified the
Trotskyist prisoners. The police inspector who interrogated Hector
Abhayavardhana stated, "You represent the most dangerous contagion
that has been brought into this country. Whether in jail or outside, we
will not allow you to infect the educated youth. We shall see to it that
you are effectively isolated." 67 The Trotskyists, including Kusuma and
her infant son, were jailed at the Arthur Road Prison.
In Madras the police arrested Lionel Cooray, Reggie Senanayake,
and Solomon, the jail guard who had fled with the Samasamajists. 68
Robert Gunawardena remained at large, trying to regroup the handful
of comrades who were left in Bombay and Madras. But a few months
later he, too, was arrested, roughed up in the police station, and jailed,
along with several more Indian comrades. The Director of the
Intelligence Bureau reported that the BLPI had been "severely
66
The Indian BLPI members were Vinayak Purohit, Shanta Patel, Ramesh Karkal,
Raghuvir Kodial, and P.G. Koppar.
67
Interview with Hector Abhayavardhana, 18 December 1997, and subsequent letter

to author, 13 November 1997.
68
"Police Raid Trotskyist Centres in Bombay and Madras," Permanent Revolution

(July-September 1943), p. 27, and "The Stalinist-Police Alliance-The Summit of
Popular Frontism," Permanent Revolution (January-March 1944), p. 21. Author's
copies, originals in possession of the late V. Karalasingham.
128
weakened by a round-up in Madras, Bombay and Ahmedabad between

July and September when nine Ceylonese Trotskyist absconders and
eleven Indian accomplices were arrested." 69
Conditions in jail were horrible. "I was herded together with the
most uncouth elements in India," recalled N.M. Perera. "There were
lepers, T.B. patients, and V.D. victims. I could not eat or drink. I lost
nearly thirty or fourty pounds." 70 Robert Gunawardena recalled, "Life
in this jail was one of the worst ordeals that I have had to endure in life.
Fourteen of us were packed in a cell that was only 18 feet by 15 feet
wide. And the cell was crawling with bugs." 71 Philip Gunawardena
evidently took it in stride; he fraternized with the pimps, taunted the
guards, and remained feisty. 72
The Ceylonese were eventually sent back to Ceylon. Robert
Gunawardena had his leg broken by a guard during his trip. He was
kept chained to a hospital bed. Philip Gunawardena and N.M. Perera
were sentenced to two years' imprisonment and incarcerated in
Badulla. Philip Gunawardena made a fiery speech when he was
brought before a magistrate for sentencing. "I escaped from prison in
April 1942, for the purpose of helping the tiny group of Fourth
Internationalists in India to build a party of the working class that can
take advantage of the crises in Indian society that are breaking out in
rapid succession. My colleagues and I timed our escape to be in India
at one of the most important crises in her history. We are glad that we
were able to play an infinitesimally small part, no doubt, in the
movement that took place in India from August 1942 ... Time is with
us. Imperialism is doomed. The future is the working class." 73
69
70
N.M. Perera interview with H.L.D. Mahindapala, Ceylon Observer, 7 July 1963.
See also E.P. De Silva, A Short Biography of Dr NM Perera, p. 23.
71
Robert Gunawardena, "My Political Life," Daily Mirror, 18 December 1971.
72
Interview with Hector Abhayavardhana, Colombo, 18 December 1997.
73
Philip Gunawardena, speech in Magistrate's Court, Kandy, 8 February 1944.

Reprinted in Militant [USA], 14 October 1944; Workers International News, vol.
5, no. 7 (December 1944), p. 15; and Socialist Appeal, December 1944, p. 3.
129
Optimism and False Expectations
In 1940, shortly before his assasination, Trotsky predicted that the war
would beget revolutionary battles anew. The Fourth International
regarded the Quit India revolt as the first skirmish. The BLPI, despite
its small size and forced clandestinity, remained optimistic. The
Trotskyists believed that History was sweeping Stalinism into its
proverbial dustbin. The fact that Stalin dissolved the Comintern in
1943, as a gesture of appeasement to his allies, seemed to be another
powerful confirmation.
In 1943 Ajit Roy confidently predicted the death of the Communist
Party of India: "The coming months will witness the complete
disintegration and disappearance of Stalinism as a factor in Indian
politics. With the decline of Stalinism and its fast approaching death,
Marxism is once again coming to life in the young and growing cadres
of the Fourth International in India. In the months to come, as the
vanguard of the anti-imperialist masses of India turns away in disgust
from the bankrupt policies of the bourgeois nationalists and their
'socialist' allies, they will find in the programme and principles of the
Fourth International, the only guarantees for the ultimate freedom of
India." 74
Trotsky had often spoke about the "right to revolutionary
optimism." This, however, went far beyond optimism. In hindsight it is
painfully clear that the Trotskyists had set themselves up for a big fall
when events took a very different course.
74
Ajit Ray, ".India: The Role of the Congress Leaders," Workers International News.
vol. 5, no. 12 (August 1943), p. 7.
130
CHAPTER FIVE
The Interlude
As the Quit India movement ebbed, the tide of war turned. The British
military, now under the command of Mountbatten, held the line on the
India-Burma border. In 1944 Allied forces repulsed the Japanese in
Assam and the Arakan, beginning the counter-offensive that eventually
dislodged the enemy from Burma. The crisis that threatened the Raj
had passed.
The Congress was in disorderly retreat. Gandhi disowned the Quit
India revolt, dropped the demand for Indian independence, and offered
to support the war in return for Congress representation in a future
"National Government." The British contemptuously rebuffed his
overture. Life in most areas of India had returned to normal. The
factories were humming, thanks to the CPI and the Royists. In Bengal
the calm was the stillness of the graveyard. A famine, caused largely by
the dislocations of the war, killed more than three million.
The period from late 1943 to 1945 was an interlude. The BLPI
finally got the opportunity to catch its breath, recoup after all the harsh
blows, and focus on what was its most urgent task: consolidating,
educating, and expanding the party.
Bombay
After the crippling police smash in 1943, the Bombay BLPI group was
reduced to just a handful of young comrades. The party units in Bengal
and Ceylon sent reinforcements to Bombay. I But they had a hard time
Karuna Kant Roy, who had been arrested in V.P. during the Quit India
disturbances, went to Bombay after he was released. He used the pseudonym
"Ranadhir," or "Randy" for short. The reinforcements from Ceylon included Hector
Abhayavardhana, Trevor Drieberg, Doric de Souza and his fiancee, Violet
Goonewardene.
131
getting established; there was a severe housing shortage. Hector

Abhayavardhana couldn't find a room to let and eventually took refuge
with sympathetic Congress Socialists in a remote village in Baroda.
The BLPI group in Bombay limped along. Morale was low. In
early 1945 the police pounced again. The two Ceylonese leaders in
Bombay, Doric de Souza and V. Karalasingham, were arrested. 2 Doric
did time in a Bombay jail and was deported back to Ceylon. And so
once again, the BLPI had to start all over in Bombay.
Calcutta
After the police raids in Bombay in July, 1943 the Ceylonese fugitives
who had escaped made their way to Calcutta. Assuming South Indian
names, they settled in the Entally suburbs. Compared to Bombay, the
morale in the Calcutta branch was good. The party group in Calcutta
had roots in the local political scene. There was plenty of work to be done.
During the war years, when the government proscribed most
political activity, the various left and nationalist parties used the student
federations as legal covers. Hence, they were highly politicized. The
BLPI recruited some talented young students, like Sitanshu Das, who
later became a well-known journalist and author. "For a while," he
recalls, "I was the group's public face, addressing public meetings and
going to meet people in other parties. Indeed, during this period I lost
support of my close student friends who were disappointed that I was
moving close to the outlandish Trotskyist group." 3 In 1945 Sitanshu
Das and other BLPI student leaders were able to pass a resolution
opposing the CPI's "Peoples' War" line at a Bengal Students' Congress
conference in Mymensingh.
The Ceylonese transplants mentored these bright Bengali
intellectuals. 4 Leslie Goonewardene wrote a primer on Marxism-
Bombay Free Press, 19 March 1945.
Letter from Sitanshu Das to the author, 24 October 2003.
132
Trotskyism that became a party textbook. 5 The distinguished Bengali

poet, Humayun Kabir, contributed the preface. 6 Colvin de Silva
worked with fanatical energy, studying, writing, and leading classes.
But life in Calcutta had its frustrations. "I detected in Colvin," recalls
Sitanshu Das, "a measure of exasperation with the inability to interact
with his peer group in Indian society. Their underground condition made
that impossible. The BLPers they interacted with in India didn't have
in Indian society the effectiveness the LSSP leaders enjoyed in Ceylon." 7
The Calcutta group stepped up its efforts to penetrate the working
class. The jute workers in the industrial belt were notoriously difficult
to organize. 8 After more than fifteen years of dogged work the CPI had
unionized less than a sixth of the jute workers. In May, 1944 the BLPI
started a monthly paper in Hindi, the language of many of the migrant
laborers. But the party was handicapped by the lack of a full-time
organizer. In addition, the group spread itself too thin, expending too
much energy "in extensive work instead of concentrating on one or two
factories as circumstances demanded." 9
The Calcutta group had several very talented writers, such as
Purnangshu K. Roy, a brilliant intellectual who later became a
physicist. He went by the nickname, "Nitai Babu." 10 Another gifted
propagandist was Hiranand Mishra, nicknamed "Hiru." During 1943-
V.S. Parthasarathi [Leslie Goonewardene), Marxist Study Course (Calcutta, 1945).

Hull: Brynmor Jones Library. This pamphlet became a standard text for Trotskyist
education in India and Ceylon.
Humayun Kabir (1906-1969) graduated from Oxford University in 1931. During
the war he became President of the Railways Association. After Independence he
became Education Minister.
Letter from Sitanshu Das to the author, 24 October 2003.
Ranajit Das Gupta, Labour and Working Class in Eastern India: Studies in
Colonial History (Calcutta, 1994), pp. 56-137 and 209-249.
"Report of the Provisional Central Committee of the BLPI," p. 10.
10
"Nitai" is the shortened name of Prabhu Nityananda, the foremost associate of the
sixteenth century Vaishnava saint, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. In those days "Nitai"
was a much favored name for a male baby in Bengali Hindu homes.
133
44 the Bengal unit published a series of pamphlets. 11 The BLPI also

published a quarterly journal, Permanent Revolution, that was so
literate that British Intelligence called the Calcutta Trotskyists
"academic votaries ofTrotskyism."
The BLPI recognized the need for a popular newspaper that would
be intelligible to the students who had just become radicalized during
the Quit India revolt. 12 But that paper, and other initiatives, couldn't be
carried forward due to the lack of funds. The Trotskyists, who aimed at
nothing less than world revolution, sometimes couldn't come up with
enough money to print Permanent Revolution. 13
United Provinces and Bihar
The leader ofthe u.P. and Bihar branches, Onkarnath Shastri, had been
arrested in 1942, and the handful of remaining cadres were jailed not long
thereafter. 14 In late 1944 the Calcutta center sent a comrade to re-establish
contact with the isolated students in Allahabad who had been left adrift.
In September, 1945 Onkarnarth Shastri was released from jail.
Returning to Kanpur, he was piqued that the party center in Calcutta
had re-established contact first. According to one of his young recruits,
Shastri "felt that his authority was threatened." 15 Shastri accused the
11
Manifesto o/the Fourth International on India; Leon Trotsky, Imperialist War and
Revolutionary Perspectives; Leon Trotsky and Max Shachtman, Fourth
International and the Soviet Union; K. Tilak [Leslie Goonewardene], From the
First to the Fourth International; Leon Trotsky, What is an Insurrection?; C.R.
Govindan [Colvin R. de Silva], The Dissolution o/the Comintern; and C.R. Govindan
[Colvin R. de Silva], First Round 0/ European Socialist Revolution. n.p. [1945].
12
13
14
Letter from Raj Narayan Arya to author, 31 March 1997. Apparently Vishwanath
Singh, an MSc student at Agra who had been recruited to Trotskyism, met Sitanshu
Das in jail.
15
Interview with Raj NarayanArya, 21 April 1974. Hector Abhayavardhana describes

Shastri as a man with "pathological leadership fantasies" who "was not interested
in building the party, except the party that was around him." Interview with Hector
134
Calcutta group of trying to "win over" his recruits. 16 Attempts to bring

Shastri back into the fold failed. 17 He tried to turn his recruits against
the BLPI leadership. IS The students opted to stay with the BLPI. Shastri
in effect split and functioned locally in Kanpur in the name ofthe BLPI
and the Fourth Internationa1. 19
The BLPI leadership in Calcutta sent Hector Abhayavardhana to
Allahabad to work with the students who were loyal to the BLPI. After
several months, the Trotskyist youth relocated to Kanpur and reestablished a BLPI group, led by Dhiren Banerjea. The group
developed supporters in the J.K. Jute Mills, the J.K. Iron and Steel
Works, and the Lakshmi Ratan Cotton Mills. Raj Narayan Arya went to
work in the Royal Ordnance Factory and became active in the union. 20
Madura
The BLPI group in Madura made its greatest progress on the labor
front. The Trotskyists developed footholds in the Madura Mills and the
Abhayavardhana, 18 December 1997. Recalling these events decades later, Shastri

admitted, "My own uncompromising nature, too, is responsible to a degree. Marx
could make friends with Engels, an industrialist, but I could not with a Ceylonese."
Letter from Onkarnath Shastri to the author, February 1978.
16
Letter from Onkarnath Shastri to author, June, 1974.
17
The BLPI secretary reported that Shastri "regarded the U.P as his preserve and
would resent any contact by the centre with the unit there except through him. "
The BLPI leaders rejected that demand, as it implied that the party was a federalist
network of semi-autonomous local units, rather than a hierarchical, democraticcentralist party on the Leninist model. "C.C. Report Presented to Party Convention
Beginning May 21, 1947," p. 15.
18
Letter from Raj Narayan Arya to author, 18 January 1978.
19
One of his leaflets stated, "We have nothing to do with the Lanka Samasamajists or
a brand of Calcutta 'Bolshevik Leninists'." "The task before the A.LC.C. LeftBoycott of the supporters of the Constituent Assembly a Supreme Test," Bolshevik
Leninist Party ofIndia, Section of the Fourth International. n.d.; also "The Indian
Parties at a Glance," printed RWPI handbill [1948?]. Author's copies, originals in
possession of the late Onkarnath Shastri.
20
New Spark, 11 October 1947 and 22 November 1947.
135
Harvey Mills, the largest British-owned textile mills east of Suez. The
Tamil mill workers, despite their "primordial loyalties of caste and
religion," were receptive to a militant alternative to the CPI. 21 When
the BLPI called a meeting, several thousand attended "to hear what the
Trotskyists were saying." 22 By 1944 the Madura unit had recruited a
dozen mill workers.
The Madura branch also sent organizers, such as B.M.K.
Ramaswamy and his older brother, Shanmuganathan, to other towns
and villages in Madras province. Ramaswamy conducted study classes
and recruited Trotskyists in towns as far away as Bodinayakkanur.
Some of the early recruits included V. Balasubramaniam.
The government was watching. In 1945 the police raided the
dwellings of a group of party sympathizers in Tinnevelly (Tirunelveli)
and found BLPI literature. That led to raids in Madura, where the
police arrested several party members and seized the party's printing
press and cyclostyle machine. "Two leading comrades of the unit,"
reported the BLPI secretary to the Fourth International, "got away into
the surrounding villages in the nick of time, ultimately to arrive, semistarved and seriously ill, at Madras, where they are now convalescing." 23
Madras
The Madras group likewise made headway on the labor front. In late
1942 the Trotskyists went into the MSM railway workshops located in
Perambur, on the outskirts of Madras. 24 The workshops had a long
21
Eamon Murphy, Unions in Conflict: A Comparative Study of Four South Indian

Textile Centres, 1918-1939 (New Delhi, 1981), p. 4.
22
D.G [Douglas Garbutt], "Report on the Fourth International Movement in India,"

p. 12. This report might have been submitted to the annual conference ofthe British
RCP in 1946. Hull: Haston, DJH/15B/68.
23
Letter from C.R. Govindan [Colvin de Silva] to Secretary, I.S., 16 April 1945.
24
Interview with S Amamath (Bombay), 14 June 1974.
136
history of militancy. 2S During the Quit India upsurge the Perambur

workers occupied the workshops to protest the arrest of the union
president. Based on their work on the shop floor, the Trotskyists
secured the support of about ten of the 40 members of the union
executive committee. In 1945 the Trotskyists played a role in leading a
militant strike of over 7,000 workers. 26
In 1943 the BLPI sent K. Appanraj into the Buckingham &
Camatic Mills, one of the oldest, largest, and technologically advanced
factories in India. Formed in the nineteenth century by John Binny, the
B&C Mills, popularly called "Binnys," had been the cradle of the
Indian trade union movement. 27 The BLPI's organizers developed a
following on the shop floor and recruited mill hands to the party. As a
result the Madras branch grew to 15 members, mainly laborers.
2S
In 1905, when the Extremist leader Tilak was sentenced, the Perambur railway
workers were the first to protest by staging a peaceful dharna for a few days. The
famous Theosophists, Dr Annie Besant and GS. Arundale, who pioneered the
Home Rule Movement, spread the message of nationalism among the Perambur
workers. In 1919 the reformers launched the Madras and Southern Maratta Railway
Employees' Union (known as M&SM). During the Civil Disobedience movement
in 1932 the Perambur workers occupied the workshops, staged processions and
public meetings, and went on strike for 77 days to protest the arrest of Gandhi and
Vallabhai Pate!.
26
The strike led to violent confrontations with the police, who opened fire on the
"rioting" strikers. IOL: LIPJ/5/208. File Po!. 12081/1945.
27
E.D. Murphy, "The Madras Labour Union, 1918-1922," Economic and Social
History Review (July-September 1977). In 1918 a Theosophist social-reformer,
B.P. Wadia, organized the mill workers into the Madras Labour. Binnys broke his
first strike. Another nationalist, T. V. Kalyanasundara Mudaliar, revived the union
and for 15 years battled Binnys to win recognition and the 8-hour day. Thiru V.
Kalyanasundara Mudaliar (1883-1953), popularly known as "Thiru Vi. Ka.," was a
well-known Tamil scholar, writer, poet, and trade-union pioneer. He co-founded
the Madras Labour Union with B. P. Wadia and started the Tamil weekly
Navasakthi in 1920. He was elected president of the Tamil Nadu Congress
Committee in 1926. He wrote nearly 50 books on a variety of subjects and followed
the teachings of Saint Sri Vallalar Ramalinga Swamigal. He retired from tradeunion and political activity in 1947.
137
On the student front the party recruited G Selvaraj, a prominent

activist in the local Congress Committee. In 1945 he was elected
delegate to the All India Students Congress as an open Trotskyist. The
BLPI helped to form three textile unions under Congress cover, one of
which they controlled. 28 The BLPI, however, noted the "anomaly and
danger" of organizing labor unions affiliated to the "bourgeois"
Congress. They managed to keep the one union they controlled
effectively independent.
At this point the Congress was starting rival unions in opposition
to the CPI. The BLPI resolved "to stand firmly against the policy of
starting rival unions as a method of driving out the Stalinists. They will
refuse to work in such rival unions." 29 That principled stand contrasts
sharply with the practice of the Stalinists, who had no compunction
about working with the police to drive out the Trotskyists and get them
arrested.
The Madras group suffered a severe blow in 1945. The party
leader,. S.C.C. Anthony Pillai, was living in the Kilpauk section of
Madras, an area inhabited by strict vegetarian Brahmins. Two of the
young comrades, B.M.K. Ramaswamy and Bodi M. Muthiah
("Manickam"), went to another section of town for non-vegetarian
meals. On one such outing someone who had known Muthiah in
Madura recognized him and tipped off the police. The police followed
them back to Kilpauk and nabbed Anthony Pillai, AlIan Mendis,
Solomon, and other party members. 30 Pillai and Mendis were charged
with possessing seditious literature and were sentenced to two years'
rigorous imprisonment at the Alipuram prison. Solomon was deported
to Ceylon, where he was sentenced to six months' rigorous
imprisonment.
28
"Notes from Tamilnad," Internal Bulletin, no. 2 (September, 1945), pp. 17-18.
29
"Notes from Tamilnad," p. 18.
30
Ceylon Daily News, 12 April 1945.
l38
The 1944 Party Conference
In 1944 the BLPI convened its first delegated party conference in

Madras. 31 Prior to the conference the leadership drafted documents for
discussion. 32 The local party groups elected a total of seven delegates. 33
In addition nine comrades, including Central Committee members,
were invited to participate in the conference. 34 The gathering had to
be organized with utmost secrecy, given the police manhunt for the
wanted Ceylonese Trotskyists. S.C.C. Anthony PilIai was a master at this.
The main political resolution reviewed the impact of the war, the
growth of the Muslim League, the rapprochement of the Indian
bourgeoisie with British interests, and the consequent shift in Congress
politics. 35 The resolution predicted that a new round of mass struggle
was not likely "in the period immediately ahead." 36 But the BLPI saw
a silver lining in this dark cloud. "Congress itself will, on settlement
and taking office once more, discredit itself progressively before both
the masses and before the more radical sections of its own
31
The conference met September 20-25, 1944. "The All-India Conference of the
BLPI," Permanent Revolution, vo\. 2, no. 3 (October-December 1944), pp. 11-12.
Hoover: LSH, box 53. Reprinted: "India," Fourth International, April 1945, p. 126.
32
K. Tilak [Leslie Goonewardena], Letter to the Secretary, International Secretariat,

4th International, 25 July 1944. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
II
The delegates were Amar [Vinayak Purohit] from Bombay; Gupta [Indra Sen] and
Carlo Roy [V. Karalasingham] from Calcutta; Menon [S.C.C. Anthony Pillai] from
Madras.; "Somu [Sundarh Rajan]" from Madura; "Ganesha" and "Jayasinghe"
from Ceylon. "Minutes of the First Representative Conference of the BLPI," 25
September 1944.
34
The invitees were Tilak [Leslie Goonewardene], Nazeem [Sitanshu Das], Livera
[Doric de Souza], S.P. [Selina Perera], Manickam [Bodi M. Muthiah], Ranadhir
[Karuna Kant Roy], Surendra [Hector Abhayavardhana], Desai [?], and Govindan
[Colvin de Silva].
35
"The Present Political Situation in India," theses passed by the Political Committee,
4 August 1944. Typed with handwritten edits, 17 pages. Hoover: SWP Papers, box
38. Reprinted in Permanent Revolution, vo\. 2, nos. 2-3 (April-December 1944),
pp. 13-28. Hoover: LSH, box 53. Also Fourth International (October 1944), pp.
301-07; and Quatrieme Internationale (July-August 1945), pp. 25-27.
36
"The Present Political Situation in India," p. 14.
139
membership." 37 The BLPI believed that the right turn of the Congress
leaders would force the wavering Congress Leftists to "break with the
bourgeoisie."
As noted in Chapter 3, the BLPI program acknowledged the
necessity for the party to send members into the Congress to do
"fraction work." Up to that point, the BLPI didn't have the opportunity
to do so. The organizational resolution directed the party to "penetrate
the student organizations" and "do fraction work in the political
organizations to which they are attached," specifically "the Congress
Socialist Party, or where no CSP exists, the Congress." 38
The resolution emphasized that "party building" remained the
central task of the BLPI. Vinayak Purohit, a delegate from Bombay,
submitted a minority organizational resolution. 39 He held that since the
BLPI was still in an "infantile condition," the party should not adopt
organizational fonus that were appropriate for a consolidated party. He
called for the election of an Editorial Board, rather than a Central
Committee, which would exercise "control over the literary and
theoretical output of the different sections," while local units would be
allowed "for the time being to have a lot of freedom in practical
matters." 40 This minority was defeated. 41 The conference elected its
first Central Committee, consisting of Leslie Goonewardene, Colvin de
Silva, Doric de Souza, S.c.c. Anthony Pillai, and Indra Sen.
Debate On the War in the Far East
When the Sino-Japanese war began in the 'thirties, the Fourth

International sided with China, on the basis that semi-colonial China
37
"The Present Political Situation in India," p. 23.
38
"Organizational Tasks of the Party in the Present Period," p. 6. Hoover: SWP

Papers, box 38.
39
Amar [Vinayak Purohit], "Proposed Draft for the Bombay Group Resolution," n.d.
[1944]. Typed, 1 page.
40
"Minutes of the First Representative Conference of the BLPI," p. 14.
41
"Minutes of the First Representative Conference of the BLPI," pp. 4-5.
140
was resisting Japanese imperialist aggression. When WWII started, the

Trotskyists continued to support China against Japan. In their view
Chiang Kai-shek and his Communist allies were waging ajust war. The
BLPI endorsed that position. 42
However, once the US entered the war, some Trotskyists,
including the Chinese section of the Fourth International, questioned
that position. 43 They argued that the Chinese war for national liberation
had become, objectively, another front in the "inter-imperialist" world
war. As proof, they pointed to the fact that the Allied powers were
providing Chiang Kai-shek and Mao with critical war supplies, flown
in from military bases in northern India. The Fourth International
rejected that position and reaffirmed its support to China in the war.
In the US the Workers Party (Max Shachtman group), which had
split from the SWP in 1940, argued that "with the spread of the world
war to the East, the just struggle for national independence of China
has been decisively integrated into and subordinated to the reactionary
inter-imperialist war and that it can no longer be supported by the
revolutionary Marxists." 44 That triggered back-and-forth polemics with
the SWP. 4S The BLPI took a keen interest in this debate. Phi lip
Gunawardena defended the official Fourth International position, while
v. Karalasingham sided with Shachtman. 46
42
43
44
45
46
K. Tilak [Leslie Goonewardene], "The War and Revolutionary Policy," Bolshevik

Leninist (August 1942), reprinted in Permanent Revolution, vol. I, no. 1 (January
1943), p. 38; "American Intervention in China," ibid, pp. 24-26. Author's copy,
original in possession of the late V. Karalasingham.
Gregor Benton, China s Urban Revolutionaries: Explorations in the History of
Chinese Trotskyism, 1921-1952 (Atlantic Highlands [NJ], 1996), p. 39.
Max Shachtman, "China in the World War," The New International (June 1942),
p.162.
The SWP wheeled out its big guns, John G. Wright and Felix Morrow, to rebut
Shachtman. See Fourth International, April 1942 and August 1942. Shachtman
blasted back in The New International, September 1942, October 1942, and March
1943.
V.S. Roy [V. Karalasingham], "China in the World War: A Review," Permanent
Revolution, vol. 1, no. 2 (April-June 1943), p. 46. Hoover: LSH, box 53.
141
The issue was debated at the party convention in 1944.

Karalasingham, Colvin de Silva, and Indra Sen argued for the minority
line, while Anthony Pillai and Leslie Goonewardene defended the
official Fourth International position. 47 After much debate the minority
line was adopted. 48 Needless to say, that decision was not well received
in London and New York. The British Trotskyist Fred Buoby, who
was serving in the military in India, reported that a "petty bourgeois
pro-Shachtman faction" had captured the BLPI. 49 That was an
overstatement. Some of the intellectuals in the BLPI certainly respected
Shachtman as a theorist. But the BLPI leadership flatly rejected his
position on the USSR, which was his fundamental difference with the
Fourth International.
Debate Over the Muslim League
In 1940 the Muslim League called for the formation of independent

states in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India, where "the
Muslims are numerically in a majority." This was the first stab at a
Pakistan. But this limited proposal had problems. The Muslims were
not uniformly in the majority in the Northwest provinces or in Bengal.
Parts of the Punjab had Hindu and Sikh majorities. In Bengal Burdwan
district and Assam were majority Hindu.
47
C. R. Govindan [Colvin de Silva], D. Gupta [Indra Sen], and S. Roy [V.

Karalasingham], "China in the World War," 23 June 1944, typed, 2 pages. Hoover:
SWP Papers, box 38; Menon [S.C.C. Anthony Pillai], "Resolution on the
Kuomintang-led War in China," n.d., typed, 2 pages. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
48
"China in the World War," Permanent Revolution. vo!. 2, nos. 2-3 (April-December
1944), pp. 31-33. Hoover: LSH, box 53. The resolution, passed by a II-to-4
majority, stated that "by reasons of the interlocking ofthe Sino-Japanese War with
the Second Imperialist World War, the subordination of Chungking'S struggle to
the reactionary war of the Anglo-American imperialists, and the conversion of the
Chung-king regime into the channel of Anglo-American economic penetration and'.'
political control, the Chungking-led war against Japan has been denuded of its
progressive content and cannot therefore be supported by proletarian
revolutionaries."
49
Letter from Fred Bunby to Jim [James P. Cannon], 3 February 1945. Hoover: SWP
Papers, box 38. Also reprinted as "India: Letter from a Comrade," Internal Bulletin
[RCP], new series no. 2, 17 March 1945, p. 6.
142
No matter how unrealistic Pakistan seemed, the slogan captured

the imagination of Muslims from all walks of life. "The Muslim
League has given you a goal," declared Jinnah in a typical speech,
"which in my judgement is going to lead you to the promised land
where we shall establish our Pakistan." 50 Jinnah left the details and
timeframe vague. "If all parties agree to the Muslim demand for
Pakistan or partition and Muslim right to self determination, details to
be settled after the war, then we are prepared to come to any reasonable
adustment with regard to the present." 51
The CPI had always denounced the Muslim League as a
"feudalist" party. But that changed when the CPI turned pro-war. The
Muslim League was the only other mass party that supported the war. In
1942 Dr. Gangadhar Adhikari, a senior Communist leader, wrote that it
was "wrong and unrealistic" to dismiss the Muslim League as reactionary.
52 He asked Congress to "boldly concede the sectional demands of the
Muslim League." Many Communists were stunned with this flip-flop. 53
The Bolsheviks had defined a nation as "a historically constituted,
stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common
language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up
manifested in a common culture." 54 Applying this definition to India,
50
51
52
53
54
Quoted in Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah ofPakistan, p. 194.

Quoted in Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah ofPakistan, p. 202.
Quoted in Gene D. Overstreet and Marshall Windmiller, Communism in India
(Berkeley, 1959), p. 201.
The chief theoretician of the British Communist Party, R. Palme Dutt, thought
Adhikari was nuts. In his journal, Labour Monthly, Dutt dismissed the "Pakistan"
solution as "impractical." D.N. Pritt, "India," Labour Monthly, April 1942, p. 107;
and Ben Bradley, "India Threatened," Labour Monthly, May 1942, p. 146. But the"
British Communists were never ones to challenge Moscow Wisdom. Dutt and Ben'"
Bradley subsequently endorsed the Adhikari Thesis. Ben Bradley, introduction to
G. Adhikari, Pakistan and Indian National Unity (London. [1942]).
Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National Question (1913). Lenin directed Stalin to
write this book under his editorial direction. Subsequently Stalin became
recognized as the Bolshevik authority on the national question, at least until 1922,
when Lenin denounced Stalin and called for his removal as General Secretary on
the basis of his domineering, crass, and bureaucratic suppression of the Bolshevik
comrades in Georgia.
143
Adhikari identified a plethora of "nationalities," including the Pathans,

Western Punjabis, Sikhs, Sindhis, Hindustanis, Rajasthanis, Gujeratis,
Bengalis, Assamese, Biharies, Oriyas, Andhras, Tamils, Karnatikis,
Maharashtrians, and Keralas. He concluded that each had the right to
exist as an autonomous state or federation, or to secede, if it so wished. 55
Initially, the CPI envisioned the formation of several Muslim states
or autonomous regions in a Balkanized India. 56 But each succeeding
policy statement inched closer to all-out endorsement of "Pakistan." By
1943 Sajjad Zaheer, a member of the CPI central committee, sounded
not much different than Jinnah: "Congressmen generally fail to 'see the
anti-imperialist, liberationist, role of the Muslim League, fail to see that
the demand for Muslim self-determination or Pakistan is a just,
progressive and national demand, and is the positive expression of the
very freedom and democracy for which Congressmen have striven and
undergone so much suffering all these years." 57 Needless to say, most
Hindus in Congress would rather eat beef than accept Pakistan.
In practice the CPI helped to build the Muslim League. The CPI
instructed its student members at Aligarh Muslim University to join the
All India Muslim Students Federation. 58 In Kerala E.M.S. Namboodripad
55
S6
57
58
In September, 1942 the CPI central committee passed a resolution stating: "Every
section of the Indian people which has a contiguous territory as its homeland,
common historical tradition, common language, culture, psychological make-up,
and common economic life would be recognized as a distinct nationality with the
right to exist as an autonomous state within the free Indian Union or federation and
will have the right to secede from it ifit may so desire." Reprinted in N.K. Krishnan
(ed.), National Unity for the Defence of the Motherland (Bombay, 1943), pp. 2425. The "Adhikari Thesis" is reprinted in Amar Farooqui (ed.), Remembering Dr.
Gangadhar Adhikari: Selectionsfram Writings. Part 11. (New Delhi, 2000).
The September, 1942 CPI resolution recognized the right of self-determination for
"the Muslims wherever they are in an overwhelming majority in a contiguous
territory which is their homeland." Reprinted in N.K. Krishnan (ed.), National
Unity for the Defence of the Motherland. p. 25.
Sajjad Zaheer, A Case for Congress-League Unity (Bombay, 1944), p. i. Zaheer
said the demand for Pakistan was the "logical expression of the development of
political consciousness among the Muslim peoples of India."
Mushirul Hasan, Legacy of a Divided Nation: India s Muslims Since Independence
(Boulder, 1997), p. 113.
144
and A.K. Gopalan led processions of Muslims, shouting "Pakistan

Zindabad." The CPI distributed League literature, including
inflammatory sectarian tracts, like Muslim Sufferings under the
Congress Rule and It Shall Never Happen Again.
Faced with these developments, the BLPI had to confront the
communal question. Colvin de Silva authored a position paper that was
put before the conference in 1944. 59 "The Indian nation consists of
various nationalities (e.g., Bengalis, Punjabis, Andhras, Tamilians,
Canaras, etc.) who are bound together by common language, culture,
historical tradition, etc." But, unlike Adhikari, he rejected the idea that
the Muslims, a dispersed religious minority, could be regarded as a
nation. "There is no basis, whether of common historical tradition,
language, culture or race, or in respect of geographical or economic
factors, for the arising of a distinct Muslim nationality."
Indra Sen and Anthony Pillai submitted a separate report citing
empirical evidence of growing separatist tendencies in numerous
regions, especially the Muslim majority areas in Bengal and the
Northwest Frontier Province. 60 "The phenomenal rise of the ML
[Muslim League] into a mass party is an index to the development of
separatist tendencies." The report concluded that the BLPI should
"without any reservation declare to the peoples in these zones that we
are ready to support with all our might the right to national selfdetermination. "
After a lengthly debate the conference delegates adopted the
Colvin de Silva document, tabling the Sen-Pillai report for further
discussion within the party. 61 The debate continued in the Calcutta
59
"The Pakistan Slogan," Permanent Revolution, vol. 2, nos. 2-3 (April-December

1944), pp. 28-29. Hoover: LSH, box 53. Reprinted: "Resolution on Pakistan," New
International, December 1946, pp. 300-01.
60
D. Dutt [Indra Sen] and K. Menon [S.C.C. Anthony Pillai], "Report on Separatist
Tendencies in India," Permanent Revolution, vol. 2, nos. 2-3 (April-December
1944), pp. 34-38. Hoover: LSH, box 53.
61
"Minutes of the First Representative Conference of the BLPI," pp. 11-14.
145
branch. Several comrades supported the Sen-Pillai position as a way to

"rob this reactionary zamindar-industrialist bloc [the Muslim League]
of its only demagogic slogan." 62 P.K. Roy, on the other hand, insisted
that "the Muslims of India cannot be classified as a nation since the
only thing that is common to them is the Muslim religion." 63
However, not all Trotskyists agreed. In the US the Shachtman
group (Workers Party) said that the BLPI failed to deal with the reality
behind the Pakistan demand. "Thus, we must clearly state that the
Moslem people shall have the right to form independent states,
including enclaves within Hindu territory, if they so wish and so decide
for themselves ... we cannot deny the right of the Moslem masses to
attempt such a separatist experience, if they so wish. Above all, the
Indian Trotskyists must openly proclaim the right of-the Moslem people
to vote on such a proposal." 64
Help From Abroad
During the war the American and British Trotskyists tried to help their
Indian and Ceylonese comrades. The mail was no longer reliable. The
American Trotskyists began a secret courier operation. Even after the
war, the operation was kept secret. 65 But thanks to the documents
62
Sitanshu Das, "The Pakistan Slogan and the Right of Self-Determination," Internal
Bulletin, no. 2 (September 1945), pp. 8-9. Hull: Haston, DJH/15G/14b.
63
"The Pakistan Slogan and the Right of Self-Determination," p. 10.
64
Henry Judd [Stanley Plastrick], "Behind the Hindu-Moslem Strife: National or

Religious Question?" The New International (December 1946), p. 300.
6S
Jean van Heijenoort, the Fourth International's secretary stationed in New York
who used the name, "R. Clapper," remained tight-lipped about these covert
operations long after the war had ended. His biographer writes, "Only after insistent
questioning did he finally explain that the Socialist Workers Party had a network of
seamen, rank-and-file members of the SWP who had joined the merchant marine
instead of waiting to be drafted into the army or navy. These men sailed all over the
world and acted as couriers. They were able to deliver and receive letters,
newspapers, journals and other documents as well as messages which gave news
about what was happening in the areas they reached." Anita Burdman Feferman,
Politics, Logic, and Love: The Life ofJean van Heijenoort (Wellesley, 1993), p. 189.
146
deposited in the Hoover Archives, we now know what the SWP did and
how they did it. 66
The SWP had a party fraction in the merchant marines. The
Trotskyists would volunteer for the supply convoys headed to Asia.
They had to smuggle their bundles of Trotskyist literature on board. "I
brought all the literature that was to be delivered aboard ship," reported
one courier, "and hid it in a space behind the flour bin. Two days before
our arrival in Calcutta, I took the books out and sewed them up in flour
sacks which I intended to tie on to my body-one in front and one in
back." 67
Getting the literature ashore undetected was dicey. The sailors had
to pass through checkpoints on the docks. "The Militants can be
securely fastened under your trousers between the ankle and knee, and
the pamphlets put in your shorts, if you should come to this dock.
Books that are too bulky have t~ be cut in half." 68 Once ashore, the
couriers had to find their contacts. The seamen had to memorize their
names and addresses before they even boarded their ships. 69 Most of
the contacts lived in "native" neighborhoods that were off limits to
military personnel and sailors. The couriers had to navigate a maze of
unfamiliar, narrow alleys after dark without attracting unwanted
attention.
One sailor gave a vivid report of his cloak-and-dagger escapade. 70
After landing at the King George Docks in Calcutta, he set out late at
night to find his contact, a Dr. Himangshu Roy, the brother of BLPI
66
Report to the SWP, n.d. [circa July 1942]; Report to SWP, typed, no name and n.d.
[April 1944]; ["Comrade Hafer"], untitIed report, n.d. [December 1944]; Hoover:
SWP Papers, box 38.
67
Report to SWP, typed, no name and n.d. [Apri11944].
68
["Comrade Hafer"], untitled report, n.d. [December 1944], p. 2.
69
In the Hoover archives there is a 2-page, typed list of names and addresses for open
party sympathizers in India and Ceylon with links to the underground Trotskyists.
70
Report to SWP, typed, no name and n.d. [April 1944].
147
leader, P.K. (Nitai) Roy. "After asking several taxi drivers for the
address 1 was seeking, 1 found one who said he knew where the place I
wanted was. Nevertheless, after driving around for a considerable
length of time he confessed that he could not find the address 1 wanted.
We then stopped at a nearby Cafe to ask directions and an obliging
young man not only volunteered the information but also insisted on
getting into the cab to direct me." The helpful man turned out to be a
cop. Fortunately, the doctor had already gone to bed. "I then took the
police officer home and then taking still another cab, I circled back and
made contact with comrade Nitai. I explained the incident of the police
officer guide to Nitai, and he told me we had a very narrow escape, as
the police had been investigating their place several times recently."
The SWP used these reports to write articles on the situation in
India. But they had to be very circumspect. One article reported that "a
young American sailor" had "spent a month visiting the principal cities
and ports in India." That probably referred to the mission of J. Wallis
[Gardner Wells], who visited India and made contact with the
Trotskyists in Bombay. Another article quoted an anonymous comrade
(probably Michael Glickman) who had just returned from India. 71
"Are you from the Fourth, comrade?"
The most detailed report comes from an American Trotskyist sailor,

Lew Scott. 72 The report he submitted to his party bears physical
evidence of the security measures taken. The names of people and
places were carefully cut out of the paper. Written above each of these
holes is the missing information. This suggests that Scott wrote the
report in India or on the journey home, cut out incriminating
information, and restored the information from memory when he
arrived home.
71
72
Militant, 3 May 1941 and 7 March 1942.
"Red Passage to India," typed, 28-pages. The report bears no name, but written
across the top is "Report to Bureau F.I. by L. Scott." A subsequent letter to the
SWP from the BLPI makes reference to the visit of "Lew Scott." I haven't been able
to determine if that was a real or assumed name. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
148
Scott had put ashore in Madras in July, 1944. He thought he could

ask around and find his comrades. But he couldn't; they wer~ deep
underground. After chasing several false leads, he was sent to an
outdoor rally sponsored by the MSM Railway Union. 73 Scott mingled
in the crowd. He came across a young man who seemed very interested
in him. The youth said he was a Gandhian and supported the war.
"Then he proposed that he has some friends who might like to hear my
point of view." The youth pretended to be a Gandhian in order to test
this stranger. "He came back with another fellow who came up, gave
me his hand, and said: 'Are you from the Fourth, comrade?' "
Scott hadjust met Bodi M. Muthiah, the BLPI's field organizer in
Madras who used the pseudonym, "Manickam." "The greatest thing in
the world had happened to Manickam-he had met a foreign
Trotskyist! In repeated handshakes we shared our joy. Myself, an
intellectual from America, and Manickam who had risen from the
depths of backward South India, the son of a poor peasant, we were
brothers." Scott was profoundly impressed with Manickam. "He had
abjured marriage and farming for the sake of the revolution. Manickam
slept in the street more often than not, and missed more meals than he
got." 74
Manickam informed Scott that the BLPI had given out leaflets at
the union festival that very day. "But comrade," Scott asked, "how do
you give out leaflets? You are illegal." Manickam replied, "We tie them
here," raising the tails of his long shirt and pointing to his waist. "We
go into the crowd, let them fall to the ground, nobody knows who
dropped the leaflets but everyone takes one and they distribute
themselves. "
Manickam asked Scott to meet him the next day. He was still
testing this stranger. They went to a cafe and talked. Manickam told
Scott he would arrange another rendezvous later that day with a higher-
73
The M&SM Railway Employees Union Silver Jubilee was celebrated from 21 July
to 24 July 1944. IOL: LlPJ/5/207. File Po!. 746911944.
74
L. Scott, "Red Passage to India," typescript, [1944]. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
149
ranking party leader. As Scott discovered later, Manickam went off to

contact Leslie Goonewardene. But he didn't have enough money to
take a bus or rickshaw. "He ran five miles one way and then five miles
back and showed up breathless at one o'clock sharp." He led Scott to
the local BLPI hideout, a spacious house in Venus Colony in
Teynampet, where Anthony Pillai and his wife Caroline, Leslie and
Viviene Goonewardene, Colvin de Silva, Selina Perera, Indra Sen, and
Appan Raj were all staying.
Later that day Manickam took Scott to a meet some of the party's
sympathizers from the Perambur railway workshops. They met in a hut
in the slums. None of the Tamil workers could speak English.
Manickam translated. Scott saw what it meant to be a Trotskyist in India.
Here, in a hovel, lit only by flickering candles, the BLPI was teaching
Marxism to illiterate workers who had just come off a 12-hour shift.
British Trotskyists in Uniform
The British Trotskyists used their members who were serving in the
armed forces in India as a conduit to the BLPI and the LSSP. Several
were stationed in Calcutta and they were able to make contact with the
BLPI group there. The BLPI regarded all members of foreign sections
as automatic members of the Indian section for the duration of their
stay. These servicemen had the opportunity to observe the work of the
party close-up and participate in internal meetings.
Douglas Garbutt arrived in India in 1943. He was stationed at the
RAF base in Tambaram, about 10 miles southwest of Madras. Garbutt
eventually made contact with the Calcutta group through a friendly leftwing bookseller. He met P.K. Roy in March, 1945. "After that," he
reported, "I would meet them about once a fortnight." 75 Garbutt was a
godsend. On several occasions he made the three-day journey down to
Colombo, collected money from Colvin de Silva's family, and brought
75
Quoted in Sam Bomstein and Al Richardson, War and the International: A History
of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain 1937-1949 (London 1986), p. 86.
150
it back up to Calcutta. Garbutt urged the Fourth International

headquarters to send literature to the Indian comrades. 76
Garbutt was struck by the sheer size and diversity of India. "India
is larger than Western Europe. It should not be surprising that
conditions vary so much-rather that they correspond to the degree that
they do." 77 Garbutt emphasized that the BLPI should work within the
"bourgeois" Congress in some areas. "At Trivandrum, in the native
states, an influential group inside the Congress has accepted our
programme and is in contact with the Party. The group has a wide
working class base but needs further ideological development before
entering the party. Due to the continued repression here, the Congress
presents the only field of work at the moment."
Fred Bunby was attached to the 136 Repair and Salvage Unit of
the RAF. Bunby made contact with several BLPI branches. 78 Bunby
sent his reports and documents back to the British party by the "Green
envelopes" and "privilege air letters" used by British forces in India. 79
He participated actively in the BLPI, writing documents under the party
name, "M. Usman."
Another British Trotskyist who assisted the BLPI in this period
was Tommy Reilly.80 He served in the First Battalion Caledonians
16
Douglas Garbutt to E.R. Frank [Bert Cochran], 29 April 1946. Hoover: SWP
Papers, box 38.
11
D.G [Douglas Garbutt], "Report on the Fourth International Movement in India."
1B
Fred Bunby to Jim (lames P. Cannon], 3 February 1945. Hoover: SWP Papers, box
38.
19
"Notes on Communications Between Egypt, Palestine, India, and England, United

States of America," from "Eric" to the C.C. of the RCP, 5 March 1945. Hull:
Haston, Dlli/15F/8.
BD
Frank T. Reilly, known as "Tommy," was originally from Glasgow, where he had
joined the Independent Labour Party. In 1938 he moved to London and joined the
Workers International League, one of the Trotskyist groups then functioning in
Britain. At the onset of WWII, anticipating government repression, he shifted to
Ireland with Jock Haston, Gerry Healy, and others to set up a clandestine party
center with printing press. He was part of the First Wing B.B.R.C. in India in 1945.
151
(Scottish Rifles), part of the South East Asia Command. Like Bunby,
he helped to obtain badly needed literature for the BLPI. 81
Work Among Indians in Britain
The Revolutionary Communist Party, the British Section of the Fourth

International formed in 1944, fought on the home front for India's
freedom. Two of the eight members of the party's Political Bureau were
Indians, namely Ajit Roy and V. Sastry. Roy had been responsible for
cultivating the original Bengal group before the war. He was a
powerful orator, wrote for the Socialist Appeal, and did trade-union
work in the Amalgamated Engineering Union. His wife, Annie, a
Jewish refugee from Europe, was also a member of the RCP.
V. Sastry was one of the party's best organizers. Originally from
South India, he came to the UK in 1936 to train as ,a journalist, got
involved with the India League, and joined the Communist Party. He
worked at the B.S.A. Works in Birmingham. Sastry became the leader
of the Indian Workers Association, formed in Coventry in 1941. British
Intelligence regarded him as "probably the most dangerous Indian in
the Midlands."82 The India Office warned the Home Office that Sastry
was "rapidly developing into a political menace." 83 He was named one of
six Indians in Britain to be arrested in the event of a German invasion.
Roy and Sastry recruited more Indians to the party, including A.V.
Angadi, a journalist who had become a Trotskyist in the late 'thirties. 84
The RCP made inroads into the Indian political milieu formerly
dominated by the Communist Party. The RCP developed close relations
81
Letter to SWP, 12 April 1945. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.b
82
IOL: LlPJIl2/645. Files Pol.(S) 78711942 and Pol.(S) 59211942. Also IOL: LlPJI
121485. File Pol.(S) 51411943. IOL: LlPJ/12/649. File Pol.(S) 11111943. IOL: LI
PJ/12/64S. Files Pol.(S) 69411942 and Pol.(S) 98711942.
83
Report 28 March 1944. IOL: LIPJ/12/64S.
84
The government amassed a thick file on Angadi. IOL: LlPJ/12/518.
152
with Surat Ali, who was a leading light of "Swaraj House." 85 In

August, 1944 the Rep set up an "Indian Information Bureau" to publish
Trotskyist literature relating to India. 86
Tenacious Optimism
Despite all the obstacles, the BLPI remained optimistic. "Even if not
again during the war, then assuredly after the war, India, and with it the
whole world, will witness an upsurge of the masses the like of which
the world has not yet seen. For that upsurge we must prepare patiently
from now on." 87 That upsurge would come sooner than the BLPI
imagined.
85
IOL: LlPJIl2/485. Pol.(S) 7643/1943.
86
"The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain," Home (Pol) File No. 717147-Poll
(1), National Archives ofIndia, New Delhi.
87
"Gandhi on the Road to Betrayal" (20 July 1944), reprinted in Fourth International
(October 1944), p. 308; and also "The Present Political Situation and Our Tasks,"
Permanent Revolution, July-September 1943, pp. 18-21. Author's copy, original in
possession of the late V. Karalasingham.
153
CHAPTER SIX
Rifts in the Party

The Trotskyists attributed the failure of the Quit India revolt to the lack
of a "revolutionary leadership." But how could their tiny group, new to
the scene and forced to operate underground, possibly provide that
leadership? The Communist Party and the Royists, with the help of the
government, had the labor movement in their grip. How could the
Trotskyists "short-circuit the official leadership of the working class
organizations and get through to the worker masses?" 1
A struggle developed within the BLPI over this strategic question.
One side took the position that the BLPI would miss the bus again if it
crept along, recruiting one member at a time. They proposed a bold
tactical turn, in which the BLPI would broker a regroupment of
revolutionaries into a new mass party. The other side argued that the
BLPI needed to stay the course, preserving its independence and
Trotskyist program, no matter what.
In the history of the left there are examples aplenty of how a small
group facing enormous odds gets consumed in factionalism. That is
exactly what happened to the BLPI. This struggle, fought in the depths
of the underground, has never been adequately explained. It was
confusing, murky, and messy. In this chapter I reconstruct what
happened during those fateful years 1942-43 , based on memoirs of
participants, interviews, and contemporary party documents. 2
Gafur Khan, "Lessons of the First Phase of the Anti-Imperialist Struggle," p. 7.

In 1944 the BLPI leadership prepared a detailed internal report on the faction fight
for the first party conference. "Report of the Provisional Central Committee of the
BLPI," 20 September 1944. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38. This report was also
reprinted by the Revolutionary Communist Party, the British section of the Fourth'
International, in an internal bulletin, News Commentary. vo!. I, 4 August 1945.
Hull: Haston, DJH/15G/14b. In his memoirs, Working Underground, Regi
Siriwardena, who was a young recruit in 1942, lifted the veil even more.
154
The Roots of the Conflict
In 1939-40 the Ceylonese Trotskyists initiated a series of wrenching

changes in the LSSP. They expelled the Stalinists, solidarized with the
Fourth International, and commenced to "convert the party from a
loose body of individuals into a fighting organization." 3 So far, so
good. But a few months later the government attacked. The LSSP was
driven underground before the process of organizational transformation
was complete. That was the root of the problem.
The LSSP could no longer afford to be a loose, porous, mass
organization. With the police breathing down its neck, the party
leadership, or rather those who were still at large, had to create an
underground apparatus, consisting of dedicated and tested comrades.
The membership list was "pruned." A new leadership collective
formed, including Doric de Souza, Robert Gunawardena, Leslie
Goonewardene, and youth activists, like Esmond Wickremasinghe.
As more comrades were arrested, the holes in the party apparatus
had to be filled. That's when the incipient differences emerged. Robert
Gunawardena felt that Doric was biased towards the middle-class
students. "Doric argued that whenever vacancies occured in the Central
Committee they should be filled with intellectuals from the
university." 4 Robert wanted to rely more on loyal party workers, most
of whom didn't have college degrees or in-depth knowledge of Marxist
theory. That kind of disagreement doesn't normally lead to a faction
fight. Indeed, there were deeper differences.
Doric de Souza was gung-ho to "Bolshevize" the LSSP. He was
critical of the pre-war LSSP, which he characterized as a "Menshevik"
party. Doric wanted to make a clean break with the past and build a
Leninist party based on "professional revolutionaries." That kind of
talk appealed to the idealistic young recruits from the campus. One
LSSP veteran, Amaradasa Fernando, recalls those "heady days"
Leslie Goonewardene, A Short History o/the Lanka Sama Samaja Party. p. 15.
Robert Gunawardena, "My Political Life," Daily Mirror, 4 December 1971.
155
when "young romantic revolutionaries" like himself went to secret

LSSP study groups to hear Doric lecture on the Russian Revolution. 5
Doric was their guru.
The changes in the party organization produced a backlash. Some
trade unionists felt slighted and alienated. 6 Who was this Doric de
Souza, a snooty professor, to exclude worker comrades? Doric made
matters worse by conducting a whispering campaign against N.M.
Perera as a "social democrat" who didn't belong in a revolutionary
party. 7 Whether or not that was justified, the workers were angry that
Doric, who had never led a strike in his life, dared to criticize their
popular leader, who was serving time behind bars for his dedication to
their cause.
Philip Gunawardena, who was still in jail at that point, sided with
brother Robert. He accused Doric of steering the party away from the
workers. 8 Philip didn't think Doric understood how a Leninist party
had to be built, step by step, with the organizational forms evolving as
the party matured. In his view Doric and his circle were mechanically
Amaradasa Fernando, "Elmer de Haan: A Prophet without Honour," Daily News

[Colombo], 28 June 2004. For similar recollections, see Reggie Perera, "Journey
in Politics," Ceylon Observer, 9 September 1962; and Hector Abhayavardhana,
"Categories of Left Thinking in Ceylon," pp. 361-62.
This group of LSSP trade unionists included w.J. Perera, George Perera, and GP.
Perera. Since there were so many Pereras in the LSSP, they had nicknames. WJ.
Perera was popularly known as "Hospital" Perera, since he worked in a hospital.
GP. Perera was known as "Elephant" Perera, since he worked in the factory that
produced Elephant brand of cigarettes. George Perera was called "Chumbi." He
rose to become a member of the LSSP central committee and vice president of the
Ceylon Federation of Labour. D.G William was nicknamed "Galle Face" William,
because he worked as a waiter at the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo. In 1964 he
became general secretary ofthe Ceylon Federation of Labor.
In 1941 Doric wrote a letter to another party comrade, Sam Silva, in which he
called N.M. Perera a social democrat who didn't belong in a revolutionary party.
Apparently this letter was handed over to the leaders in the Kandy jail. One can
imagine the reaction. Perera was not only one of the LSSP's most popular leaders,
he was also a close friend and loyal follower of Phi lip Gunawardena.
"Report of the Provisional Central Committee of the BLPI," 20 September 1944.
156
imposing recipes taken from Lenin's writings on the party question. He

called thempotheguras [literally, those who teach by the book].
Philip had more experience in these matters than anyone else in
the party. During his idealistic Communist days in England, Phi lip had
envisioned forming a Leninist party in Ceylon with "an iron discipline
and a crystal-clear ideology." 9 But after he returned home, he realized
that the preconditions didn't exist. He spent several years doing the
spadework, much like Plekhanov had done in Czarist Russia. Given the
immaturity of the left movement in Ceylon, the LSSP had to start life
as a radical populist party, based on a network of local branches, youth
leagues, Suriya Mal organizations, and other groupings. With Philip at
the helm the LSSP sharpened its program and tightened its organization
over the next few years. 10 But even so, when the repression hit in 1940,
the LSSP was still a loose party with a fuzzy program. 11
Philip intervened and imposed his will. He nominated three
working-class comrades for the party's committee-Mike [Gunadasa],
David [Milton Perera], and Richard [Richard Green]. 12 "When the
LSSP was in dire straights," stated Robert, "it was men like David and
Gunadasa who stood by the party." Doric de Souza evidently bowed to
In 1931 Philip Gunawardena, using the pseudonym "Gamaralla," wrote to Dr. S.A.
Wickremasinghe in Ceylon stating that "he hopes to form Marxist Study groups
there, by correspondence, before his return, taking over personal control in due
course." IOL: LlPJ/12/409, folio 23. A few months later, in a follow-up letter to
Wickremasinghe, dated 3 October 1931, he suggested that the Youth Leagues could
be transformed into a revolutionary organization "with an iron discipline and a
crystal clear ideology." IOL: LlPJ/12/409, folio 28. In November, 1931 he drafted
a document on the need for a Communist Party in Ceylon. IOL: LlPJ/12/409, folio
30.
10
Hector Abhayavardhana, "Marxism and Some Features of the Lanka Sama Samaja
Party," reprinted in Raj an Philips (ed.), Sri Lanka: Global Challenges and National
Crises, pp. 375-76.
11
Hector Abhayavardhana, "The War: Its Importance in Colvin's Development as a

Marxist Leader," Lanka Guardian, 15 June 1982, p. 13.
12
Arjuna, Pilip Gunavardhana caritaya (Moratuwa, 1969), p. 86; and "Report of the
Provisional Central Committee of the BLP!."
157
Philip. 13 An American Trotskyist sailor who put ashore in Colombo in

July, 1942, reported: "The Ceylon section, in spite of the severe
repression, is functioning smoothly and efficiently." 14 But appearances
can be deceiving.
Cross-Currents Under the Surface
At that point there were several dynamics at play. When Philip was
arrested in 1940, the LSSP leadership collective changed. Philip was
no longer the dominant party leader. His lieutenants, N.M. Perera and
Colvin de Silva, were likewise removed. Doric de Souza became the
rising star. But Philip was not about to relinquish his throne. The initial
skirmish thus had a generational aspect, the Old Guard versus the
Young Turks.
Second, there was an ideological change. Before the war the LSSP
avoided doctrinaire politics. But after the Stalinists were expelled the
LSSP had to make up for lost time. The party intellectuals embraced
Trotskyism with a passion. Doric was fanatical. He could debate the
fine points of Marxist doctrine with other educated comrades. The
intellectuals could devour the latest Trotskyist journal received from
London or New York. But the LSSP trade unionists couldn't read or
understand English at that level. The ideological development of the
party, healthy in itself, thus opened a rift.
13
According to Hector Abhayavardhana, "Phi lip Gunawardena was not only an

impetuous personality, but he also was never a respecter of persons. It was never
his way to be conciliatory in getting over problems; he preferred to take them
headlong and impose his will on them. It was not easy for people of equal stature to
keep his goodwill without submitting to him." Hector Abhayavardhana, "Marxism
and Some Features of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party," p. 384.
14
Typed 5-page report, n.d. and not signed. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38. The LSSP
secretary, Lorenz Perera, gave the courier a report to take back to the Fourth
International bureau in New York. It, too, made no mention of any internal conflict
in the party. Letter to Secretary, Bureau ofthe Fourth International, signed "L.M.P."
[Lorenz Perera], 19 July 1942. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 44.
158
Third, there were cultural and class tensions. Doric was Goan in
background. He was the epitome of the brainy, cosmopolitan, Marxist
intellectual. He also had the reputation for being arrogant and
demanding. The party workers were more comfortable with an
intellectual like N.M. Perera, who for all his learning had an easy-going
manner, than with Doric, an Anglicized intellectual who could barely
speak Sinhalese.
The Enigma
Caged in his cell, Philip Gunawardena had more on his mind than just
organizational questions. Something had happened in the party. It
involved his wife, Kusuma. Someone had done something that
offended and infuriated Philip. 15 Rightly or wrongly, Philip blamed
Doric de Souza, who was responsible for looking after Kusuma while
he was in jail. Whatever happened, it deeply wounded Philip. When he
was spirited out of jail on April 7, 1942, he was gunning for Doric.
That was when all hell broke loose in the LSSP.
At the next party meeting Philip dropped a bombshell-he accused
Doric of being a police spy. 16 The comrades were stunned. Doric knew
15
16
In his memoirs Regi Siriwardena, who knows what really happened, states that
Philip suffered "a deep emotional disturbance that he was unable to control." Regi
Siriwardena, Working Underground. p. 54. Hector Abhayavardhana speculates that
Philip suspected, rightly or wrongly, that "Doric waS'. conspiring against him."
Interview with Hector Abhayavardhana and Osmond Jayaratne, 18 December 1997.
See also Hector Abhayavardhana, "Marxism and Some Features ofthe Lanka Sama
Samaja Party," p. 384; and, his introduction to Pulsara Liyanage, Vivi: A Biography
of Vi vien ne Goonewardene (Colombo, n.d.), p. 43.
Regi Siriwardena, Working Underground. p. 53. Regi Siriwardena recalls that the
meeting took place at "a large house that had probably been built for a Muslim
family." After the jailbreak the four leaders had hid together in a house in Nawala
which had been provided by Allan Mendis. After a while, Philip shifted to "The
Fortress," a huge mansion in Kollupitiya which belonged to a Muslim. Robert
Gunawardena, "My Political Life," Mirror, 4 December 1971. Kusuma, Philip's
wife, joined him shortly later at this house in Kollupitiya. Lakmali Gunawardena,
Kusuma: A Life in Left Politics (Colombo, 2004), p. 14.
159
all along where Leslie Goonewardene had been hiding. He knew where
the party press was concealed. He had driven one of the getaway cars
in the jailbreak. If he were a Judas, why were the police unable to find
Leslie or the press? Why did they allow the jailbreak to occur? The
accusation seemed prepost~rous.
IfPhilip had a personal grudge, why did he resort to such a serious
accusation? That is the enigma. The late Regi Siriwardena speculates
that Philip could not reveal what, or who, had offended him and sought
revenge through a surrogate. 17 Unfortunately, we don't have any
documents from this critical period. The party archives, including the
letters that party leaders wrote to each other from their hideouts, were
destroyed not long after. 18
Factional Warfare
In July, 1942, most of the LSSP leaders left for India. The exodus posed
anew the question of who should fill the vacancies in the Ceylon party
committee. "When Doric once again brought up the matter of filling
the vacancies with university graduates," recalls Robert Gunawardena,
"I lost my temper and nearly committed violence. But those around me
held me and prevented me." The feuding generated too much heat and
not enough light.
With the senior leaders gone, matters went from bad to worse in
Ceylon. A few months later a signific'ant section of the party rebelled
against the "petty bourgeois intellectuals." It was not a matter of a few
dissidents here and there. The opposition included a number of
founding party members, such as Susan de Silva, as well as most of
17
18
Interview with Regi Siriwardena, 20 December 1997. Also Regi Siriwardena,

Working Underground, p. 54.
Patrick Perera, the party's archivist, stored these letters along with important
Central Committee resolutions at his sister's house. When he was arrested, she
destroyed the documents before the police arrived to search the house. Hector
Abhayavardhana, "Daisy Ferdinandusz Rajakarunanayake - A devoted mother and
silent lady of the left," The Island, 30 July 2000.
160
the trade unionists. They felt that Doric and his circle had hijacked the
party and were taking it in the wrong direction. Some rank-and-file
workers raised the slogan, "A Workers' Leadership for a Workers'
Party." This group was strong. They all lived in the same working-class
section of Colombo, which the locals dubbed "Trotskypura," or Trotsky
Town.
When this news reached Bombay, the Ceylonese leaders fonned a
"Workers Opposition faction" in solidarity with their followers in
Ceylon. 19 Philip Gunawardena, N.M. Perera, and Colvin de Silva were
the leading lights. 20 The Platform of the Workers Opposition
denounced the "petty bourgeois intellectuals" in Ceylon who had
turned the LSSP into "a narrow conspiratorial sect entirely cut off from
the masses." 21 Colvin de Silva declared that "the party cannot be
restored to health, unity and effectiveness unless this faction is
smashed." 22
In response the Ceylon group around Doric de Souza fonned the
Bolshevik Leninist Faction. They charged that their critics were
hindering the Bolshevization of the party. 23 They objected to its
demand that "workers should be given preference" in elections to the
party's committees. They accused the Workers Opposition of rallying
"non-Bolshevik elements discarded by the party in its development
since 1939-40." The "Bolshevik" faction included Doric, William
19
20
21
22
23
The "Workers Opposition" faction was formed in October, 1942. The platform of
the faction was signed by nine expatriate Ceylonese leaders, including Philip
Gunawardena, N.M. Perera, and Colvin de Silva.
Other supporters of the Workers Opposition in Bombay included Hector
Abhayavardhana and Lionel Cooray. Leslie and Vivienne Goonewardene seem to
have kept neutral.
Quoted in "Report of the Provisional Central Committee of the BLPI," 20
September 1944.
"Platform of the Workers Opposition," August 1942.
Document dated 22 September 1942 and signed by 13 members of the Ceylon
Regional Committee, quoted in "Report of the Provisional Central Committee of
the BLPI," 20 September 1944.
161
Silva, Edmund Samarakkody, V. Karalasingham, and many of the

recent youth recruits, like Lorenz Perera, Dick Attygalle, R.S.
Baghavan, and Regi Siriwardena.
The BLPI Political Bureau, which was resident in Bombay, tried
to mediate. In a formal sense the Bureau had authority over the Ceylon
committee, since the LSSP had become a subordinate part of the BLPI
in 1942. At that point the Bureau consisted of Leslie Goonewardene,
Bemard Soysa, and C.y. Shukla. The two Ceylonese members tried to
maintain neutrality. The Bureau instructed the Ceylon committee to
make every effort to include more rank-and-file workers, while
rejecting the slogan, "Workers' leadership for a workers' party."
The Ceylon committee called a meeting to consider the Bureau's
instructions. At midnight on September 7, 1942 the comrades convened
at a "safe house" in Colombo. Suddenly, three men put out the lights
and attacked. They were Philip's men-Mike, Dave, and Richard. 24
The Bolshevik Leninist Faction demanded that the perpetrators be
suspended. Trotsky had always denounced the use of violence within
the left and labor movement, except in cases of self-qefense. The
Gunawardena brothers didn't agree. In their view violence against
comrades was sometimes not only justified but even necessary "to
restore them to Marxist health." 25
The BLPI Bureau suspended the three and instructed the Ceylon
comrades to convene a party conference. 26 An interim committee,
24
25
26

The Ceylon labor movement had a very rough and tough underside from the start.
There was a tradition of admiration for pugnacious leaders. The early organizers of
the Colombo labor movement, men like John Kotelawala (1865-1908), used their
fists freely against rowdies, drunkards, criminals, and arrogant white "sahibs." His
toughness made him a popular hero in the slums. Even Anagarika Dharmapala, the
Buddhist reformer, used to exhort the Sinhalese to emulate "our fearless John
Kotelawala" and "thrash the white man." Quoted in Visakha Kumari Jayawardena,
The Rise o/the Labor Movement in Ceylon (Colombo, 1972), p. 126.
Report to the Fourth International, n.d. [1944] and not signed Hoover: SWP
Papers, box 44.
162
headed by Esmond Wickremasinghe, was formed. Something was

fishy with the delegate election: the Workers Opposition got only one
out of the sixteen delegates. They cried foul play. 27 At the conference
the "Bolsheviks" routed Philip's supporters. 28 WJ. ("Hospital") Perera,
the trade union leader, refused to recognize the conference decisions.
The LSSP was de facto split.
The Party Question in India
As we saw in Chapter 3, the LSSP decided at its secret conference in

1941 to actively help the Indian groups to unify. All the Ceylonese
leaders, whether in jailor outside, were in agreement. But differences
surfaced over questions of tactics and timing. Doric de Souza was keen
to launch the party as soon as possible. Philip thought he was rushing
the process. "It was our opinion," he explained, "that the formation of
a party on so insecure and a mean base as then existed was a grave
mistake in that the formation of a revolutionary party was not a single
artificial act but a bold natural process." 29 He criticized these comrades
for failing to grasp how a party had to be built.
Philip drew a distinction between a platform and a party: "whereas
a platform places before the masses a particular strategy to be followed
27
Susan de Silva, The Wrecking of the LSSp, p. 19.
28
Doric de Souza had prepared factional resolutions. One condemned the Workers
Opposition as a reactionary tendency. Another called for purging "all backward,
inactive and unreliable elements" and adopting strict Bolshevik organizational
principles. The delegates condemned the slogan, "Workers' Leadership for a
Workers Party." "Report of the Provisional Central Committee of the BLPI," 20
September 1944.
"To Comrades Raju, Rao, and Randhir," n.d. [1943]. The signatories are: Joseph
[probably Philip Gunawardena], Oliver [N.M. Perera], Maurice, Regpee [probably
Reggie Perera], Jackie [perhaps Jack Kotalawala], Cuthbert, Prakash [Robert
Gunawardena], Amar [Vinayak Purohit], Surendra [Hector Abhayavardhana]. Hull:
Haston, DJHI15GI14b. One of the Bombay comrades, Vinayak Purohit ("Amar"),
came to Ceylon, visited the LSSP prisoners in jail, and gave them his impressions
of the state of affairs in the BLPI. This letter to the comrades in Bombay was the
result of those discussions.
29
163
in the solution of the problems, a party is essentially the concrete

manifestation of the ability to transfer that strategy from the realm of
theory to that of practice." 30 In other words, don't proclaim yourselves
to be a party if you can't really be one. Philip proposed the publication of
a regular Trotskyist journal in India to influence "such individuals and
groups as were already moving towards a Fourth Internationalist
position." 31 There were contacts in Lucknow, Delhi, Lahore, and
Jamshedpur who had expressed a willingness to work with the
Trotskyists. In his opinion the Indian groups hadn't yet even reached
their "Iskra stage." 32
Doric de Souza went up to Bombay and dutifully reported these
views. The Bombay comrades bowed to the judgement of the senior
leaders in Ceylon. They postponed the date for launching the BLPI until
later in 1942 and began to publish a journal, The Bolshevik-Leninist. 33
Role Reversal
The situation in India changed dramatically over the next six months.
The Cripps Mission came and went. The Congress Left was clamoring
for action. There were sporadic outbursts oflabor militancy. Following
these events from afar, Phi lip Gunawardena sensed that a great struggle
was in the offing. If so, there would not be as much time for
propagandistic preparation as he had hoped just a few months earlier.
And so he supported the formation of the BLPI in May, 1942.
30
"To Comrades Raju, Rao, and Randhir."
31
32
The Russian Social Democrats started to publish their first paper, Iskra, in
December, 1900. In his 1923 lectures on the history of the Bolshevik Party, Grigorii
Zinoviev described its importance: "This was not just any newspaper: it was a
published organ which succeeded in becoming the master of a whole generation of
minds, fulfilling a great literary and political task and simultaneously
accomplishing huge organizational political work in consolidating the party."
Grigorii Zinoviev, History of the Bolshevik Party - a Popular Outline (London,
1973), p. 73.
II
C.P.S., L.S.G., E.B.S., Letter to the Secretary, Bureau of the Fourth International,
29 June 1942.
164
When Gandhi posed the Quit India ultimatum two months later,
Philip concluded that, ready or not, the BLPI would have to enter the
fray under its own banner. "The Indian bourgeoisie will start a civil
disobedience movement. When this movement develops and is
transformed into a mass movement, the working class will wrest its
leadership from the bourgeoisie. Under the unstained red banner of the
Fourth International, the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India will show
the way to the working class." 34 After writing those lines, he and his
comrades set out for India.
Once in Bombay the Ceylonese joined the local party group, which
was still using its pre-merger name, Bolshevik Mazdoor Party (BMP).
That in itself was symptomatic. C.V. Shukla, the local leader, ran the
group like it was still an independent party, his party. He wanted the
BLPI to be named BMP, rather than vice versa. He insisted on
maintaining exclusive control over his printing press, which he kept
hidden, and his group in Ahmedabad, which was independently
publishing its own newspaper, Inkilab [Revolution].
The Ceylonese transplants were appalled at this state of affairs.
They pressed Shukla to relinquish the press and integrate his groups
and newspapers. Shukla resisted. He wouldn't reveal where the press
was hidden. 35 Philip Gunawardena called Shukla a "narrow-minded
provincial." But Shukla had the Ceylonese over a barrel. On their own,
they couldn't do much in Bombay. They were foreigners, wanted by
the police, unfamiliar with the political scene, and unable to speak the
local languages. And so the Ceylonese leaders didn't force a showdown.
When the Quit India revolt erupted, the Bombay group suddenly
had new openings and new opportunities to pursue. Shukla wanted the
BLPI to intervene like a mass party, even though the Bombay branch
34
35
Philip Gunawardena, "The Coming Indian Revolution"(l7 August 1942), quoted

in Meryl Fernando, "An Account of the LSSP, 1939-1960," in Al Richardson (ed.)
Blows Against the Empire. pp. 72-73.
Letter to Secretary, International Secretariat, Fourth International, from K. Tilak
[Leslie Goonewardene], 25 July 1944. Hoover: SWP Papers.
165
had only a couple dozen members. 36 He formed little "labor

committees," consisting of young recruits with no trade-union
experience, to carry out "mass work" in the textile mills. The
Ceylonese, who actually had experience in mass work, recommended
abolishing these ineffective committees and creating a smaller branch
executive to direct all party work. 37 That was rejected.
Never one to suffer fools, Philip Gunawardena was running out of
patience. "At a time when the problem before us was to find a base in
Bombay, we were writing memoranda and holding discussions as to the
form of organisation best suitable for the existing twenty-odd members.
The fact that we constituted a party without being able to discharge its
most important functions faced us with insoluble problems." 38 Philip
blamed Shukla "for the failure of the Party to achieve any significant
link-up with the workers in Bombay." 39
The clashes "developed into a bitter internal struggle." 40 Shukla
attacked the Workers Opposition as an "anti-Bolshevik tendency" that
was trying to impose "the leadership of old leaders of Ceylon over the
budding all-India organisation." 41 He called Philip an ego maniac who
was "always accustomed to be obeyed by hero worshippers, yes-boys,
36
37
38
39
40
41
Hector Abhayavardhana, who was a participant in these events in Bombay, says

Shukla had "leadership fantasies." Hector Abhayavardhana, "Marxism and Some
Features of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party," p. 384.
A later party report noted that "what little gains were made in the mill area could
not be stabilised due to (I) the extreme paucity of cadres available for work in this
field, (2) the immaturity and inexperience of these elements themselves, and (3) the
mistake made of frittering away effort on a wide field instead of concentrating on
intensive work in one or two mills." "Report of the Provisional Central Committee
of the BLPI," p. 7.
"To Comrades Raju, Rao, Randhir," p. 2.
Letter from Leslie Goonewardene to the author, dated 30 April 1975.
Letter to Bureau of the Fourth International, 7 August 1944, signed by Shukla and
7 other members of the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
Also Rafiq [Chandra Vadan Shukla], "Proletarian Leadership of the Indian
Revolution," Bolshevik Leninist. vo!. 2, no. 2 (November 1943), p. 11. Hoover:
LSH, box 52. This article was reprinted as a pamphlet with the same title. Hull:
Brynmor lones Library.
and paid party workers." 42 He said the Ceylonese used their personal
money to control the party. Shukla, who refused to hand over his
printing press, had the gall to accuse the Ceylonese of having "a
separate cyclostyle press and stock of paper, without the party being
aware of it, under its own control." 43
Shukla provoked Philip one time too many. Shukla had been sent
to a union convention. He procrastinated writing his report. At an
editorial board meeting, when asked again for the report, Shukla
replied that it was now so out of date it would be useless. Philip lost his
temper. He rose, grabbed Shukla by his shoulders, and shook him.
According to Hector Abhayavardhana, who was living with Phi lip and
Kusuma at that point, Philip came home from the meeting sorry for
what he had done. 44 He apologized to the central committee later.
Shukla, however, withdrew from the party and "began to build an
independent group of this own." 45 He boycotted the next meeting of
the Provisional Central Committee in June, 1943. He instead sent a
document charging that the Ceylonese were trying to dominate the Indian
party and reiterated his claim that the name of the party was BMP. The
BLPI committee rejected his document and instructed all units of the
party, including the Ceylon Regional Committee, use the name BLPI.
When the police smashed the party a month later, Shukla managed
to avoid arrest (leading some of his former comrades to question his
bona fides). He continued to publish the Bolshevik Leninist, in the
name of the BMP and the Fourth International, as if nothing had
happened. 46 The BLPI denounced the BMP for "theft of the party
42
43
44
45
46
"Causes and the Significance of the Split in the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party ofIndia,
Section Fourth International," undated 5-page typescript, copy in the Haston
Archives, Hull University. Though unsigned, this is almost certainly by Shukla.
Letter to the Bureau, Fourth International, signed by Chandravadan Shukla and
seven other members of the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party, dated 7 August 1944.
Interview with Hector Abhayavardhana, Colombo, December 17-18,1997.
Letter from Leslie Goonewardene to the author, dated 30 April 1975.
See for example "Sampurn swatantrya ke /iye" [For complete independence],
BMP leaflet, dated January 26,1944.
167
press." 47 Recalling these events many years later, Shukla admits that
the rupture was motivated mainly by personal clashes and secondary
issues. 48 "The period of illegality," he said, "prevented full democracy
within the underground party. That increased the frictions within the
BLPI over organizational issues."
The BMP was almost a carbon copy of the BLPL Shukla claimed
his group was the true representative of the Fourth International in
India. 49 The BMP churned out a lot ofliterature for such a small group:
two journals, the Bolshevik Leninist and Jagat Kranti [World
Revolution], and a mass newspaper, Age Kadam [Forward March].
Shukla had recruited some energetic young members. 50 Shukla let his
fantasies of "mass leadership" flourish. He predicted that the revolution
in India would commence within two years. 51 "We are sure that the
BM PI will grow to its full stature as a political Marxist party of the
Indian proletariat within two years."52 Despite these over-optimistic
47
48
49
50
51
. 52
"To Our Readers," Permanent Revolution, July-September 1943, p. 25. The BLPI
reported to the Fourth International that Shukla split "due principally to his
disinclination to submit himself and the Ahmedabad organization (with which he
was the sole link) to the organizational discipline of the party." Letter to Secretary,
International Secretariat, Fourth International, from K. Tilak [Leslie
Goonewardene], dated July 25,1944. SWP Papers, Hoover Archives.
Interview with C.V. Shukla, 27 December 1973.
Letter from Bolshevik Mazdoor Party to Secretary, I.S., 7 August 1944; Letter from
Chandravadan Shukla to International Secretariat, El., 26 June 1945.
In late 1943 the Chief Secretary of the Bombay government informed New Delhi
that the BMP was distributing leaflets at students meetings. IOL: LlPJ/51164. File
Pol. 2673/1944.
According to the government, one of Shukla's leaflets urged students to prepare
"for the revolution which, in its opinion, will probably occur next summer in view
of the conditions prevailing.in India at present." Report by H. Y.R. lengar, Home
Department (Special) to Conran-Smith, Secretary to Government of India, Home
Department,2 December 1943, p. 3. IOL: LlPJ/51164. In May 1945 the BMP
central committee passed a resolution calling upon Indian labor "to prepare itself
for the leadership of the Indian revolution, under the banner of its revolutionary
party, the BMPI, section Fourth International." "Resolution on Indian Political
Situation and Our Tasks," Bolshevik Leninist. vol. 4, no. 6 (May-July 1945), p. 20 .
Letter to the Bureau, Fourth International, 7 August 1944.
168
projections, Shukla managed to recruit some talented members in

Bombay. 53 In 1944 he churned out leaflets in English, Hindi, Marathi,
and Gujarati by the tens of thousands. 54
Looking back on this experience a year later, Philip Gunawardena
admitted that he had gone against his own advice and tried to function
like a party in Bombay: "we strained our resources to the utmost and,
lacking the inner organisation to maintain our cadres, exposed them to
the full blast of police repression." 55 The BLPI had tried to expand
quickly by recruiting "politically virgin students." That meant that the
BLPI had to concentrate "on the elemental political education of raw
and very youthful students. The slowness of the process defeated our
very aim of constructing the party as speedily as possible." If the BLPI
persisted in this course, "it would at this rate take more than a decade
or two to build a strong enough party."
Proposal for Bold Regroupment
Cooling their heels in jail in Bombay Philip Gunawardena and N.M.

Perera had the opportunity to ponder what to do next. They discussed
with fellow left inmates, like Mukundlal Sircar, the General Secretary
of the All-India Forward Bloc and former Secretary of the All India
Trade Union Congress. As a result, Philip and Perera authored a long
document, "The India Struggle - The Next Phase."56
53
54
55
56
Leading BMPI members in Bombay at this time were Shanta Patel, Tulsi Boda,
Vasant Joshi, Tulsi Panchal, Nagjibhai Tapiawala, and Hansa Mehta.
"Bolshevik Mazdoor Party Addresses the Revolutionary Youths and Students," 20
March 1944; "For Complete Independence," 26 January 1944; and "Prepare for
the Coming Revolution," 9 August 1944. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
"To Comrades Raju, Rao, Randhir."
"The Indian Struggle, The Next Phase," typescript, 20 pages, n.d., signed "D.P.R.
Gunawardena, N.M. Perera. Lanka Sama Samaja Party. Section of the Fourth
International." Hull: Haston, DJH 15G/14b. Mukundlal Sirear, the General
Secretary of the All-India Forward Bloc, smuggled the document out of the jail.
Sirear was an important link between the Bombay Forward Block group and the
main party based in Bengal.
169
Philip and Perera started from the premise that the revolutionary
groups were too small to make an impact on their own. Therefore, the
"genuine revolutionaries" in those parties should join together to fonn
a "united revolutionary front" functioning on an all-India basis. 57 The
document names four candidates for this merger in addition to the
BLPI: the Congress Socialist Party, the Forward Block, the
Revolutionary Communist Party led by Saumyendranath Tagore, and
the Bengal group led by Philip's old friend from London days,
Niharendu Datta Mazumdar. 58 The "central executive representing the
merging units" would work out "the details of the programme."
However, they did insist that the minimum precondition would have to
be rejection of Gandhian non-violence and support for "not merely a
national revolution but a social revolution and the dictatorship of the
proletariat." In this new party the Trotskyists would fight for
leadership. "As the only genuinely revolutionary organisation based on
class struggle and aimed at the dictatorship of the proletariat, we are
convinced that the future is with us."
The "Bolshevik" faction around Doric de Souza vigorously
opposed this strategy. In their mind the first duty of the BLPI was to
preserve its independence, as the only expression of the revolutionary
vanguard in India. The "Bolsheviks" cited the letter that Trotsky had
sent to Selina Perera in 1939, after she had tried to enter Mexico to
visit him. Trotsky stated that Indian Fourth Internationalists, while
supporting any anti-imperialist measures the Congress and "their petty
bourgeois agencies" might take, "must not confound our organization,
our program, our banner with theirs for a moment." 59
57
58
59
"The Indian Struggle, The Next Phase," pp. 19-20.

Dutt Mazumdar was the leader of the Bengal Labour Party, formed in 1932. In
1936 Mazmdar made a bloc with the Communists, who were in disarray and could
not function legally. That uneasy alliance broke down after the Communists
adopted the "People's War" line. The Labour Party split, with one section taking a
pro-war line and continuing to function as the Bolshevik Party. Mazumdar
continued to hold an anti-war position. He was arrested in December, 1942.
Leon Trotsky, "Letter on India" (24 November 1939), in Writings of Leon Trotsky
1939-40 (New York, 1973), pp. 108-09. The BLPI published this letter under the
title, "British Imperialism-India's Main Enemy," in Permanent Revolution, vo!.
1, no. 3 (July-September 1943), pp. 26-27.
170
Philip Gunawardena regarded their objections as pedantic. He

called Doric and his faction "book worms" who, "having read a couple
books written by Trotsky, embraced Trotskyism like the holy bible and
attempted to implement them to the letter." 60 Phi lip was never one to
cite Marxist "scripture" to clinch an argument. 61 But he could have
quoted Trotsky in support of his proposal. In the 'thirties Trotsky
advocated the controversial "entry tactic." 62 In the USA, for example,
the Trotskyists entered the Socialist Party. Some Trotskyists were
adamantly opposed to "liquidating the vanguard party." Trotsky called
their opposition "sectarianism."
This proposal was not considered by the BLPI as a whole until the
first party conference in 1944. At that point all the Workers Opposition
leaders were back in jail. The "Bolsheviks" thus had no problem
defeating the proposal. "This proposal, we believe, if carried out, can
only result in the dissolution of the only party (however small it may
be) existing in India today with a clear-cut revolutionary programme,
and the creation in its place at the best of a broad centrist party." 63
60
Arjuna, Pilip Gunavardhana caritaya. p. 86.
61
Hector Abhayavardhana described Phi lip as "not the kind of person who had
reduced his politics to a number of propositions or rules and then set about
applying these devices to the unfolding problems that he faced. I can't imagine him
writing out his theses and packing them with long and innumerable quotations from
leading theoreticians." Letter from Hector Abhayavardhana to the author, 10 May
1999.
In the mid-1930s the victory of the Nazis in Germany shook up the European left.
In several countries left-wing oppositions developed within the Socialist parties or
broke away entirely. Trotsky recognized a window of opportunity. In 1936 he
proposed that the French Trotskyists enter the Socialist party (SFIO) as a
disciplined tendency, recruit to their tendency, and eventually exit stronger than
before. Some Trotskyists argued that it would be a betrayal to liquidate the
"vanguard party" into a social-democratic organization. How could the Trotskyists
oppose the Popular Front on principle and then join a party that supported that
very Popular Front? Trotsky called such thinking "sectarianism."
"PC Resolution on 'The Indian Struggle - Next Phase' ," passed by the PC on 26
June 1944. Hull: Haston, DJH/lSG/14b. In his history of the LSSP Professor
Ranjith Amarasinghe incorrectly dates this document to July, 1944.
62
63
171
Time Out
In 1944 Leslie Goonewardene, the BLPI secretary, informed the Fourth

International that the factional struggle had been "resolved." 64 That
was an overstatement, to say the least. The struggle had come to a halt
only because of the police raids. Though the leaders of the Workers
Opposition were all in jail, their followers in Ceylon, particularly the
"Trotskypura" group, continued to work independently, in the name of
the LSSP. The unity was illusory.
None of the disputed issues had been resolved. Philip
Gunawardena continued to regard Doric de Souza as a police spy. He
refused to renounce the use of violence against comrades. And he and
his co-thinkers still favored a regroupment perspective. "We submit
that it would be far more profitable for us to liquidate the BLPI in
Bombay, to call ourselves the Indian League of Trotskyists (or some
such thing) and to go into the CSP and Forward Block in groups doing
all the agitation we can for the formation of the Party of the Indian
Revolution." 65
On the other side the "Bolsheviks" had no clue how to get the
BLPI to critical mass. In their view the formal independence of the
party was sacrosanct. The BLPI would just have to soldier on,
recruiting members one by one. The BLPI leaders had faith in Trotsky's
prediction that the war would beget revolution. And when that
happened, the masses would flock to their party.
As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the factionalism resumed
with a vengeance after the war. All of the unresolved issues surfaced
again.
64
Letter to the Secretary, International Secretariat, Fourth International, from K. Tilak

[Leslie Goonewardene], 25 July 1944. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
65
"To Comrades Raju, Rao, Randhir."
172
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ballots, Barricades, and Bloodshed

When the war ended, Britain faced a thorny political situation in India.
The Congress leftists were clamoring for a resumption of mass
struggle. The British troops were war weary and in no mood to remain
in India to put down unrest. Viceroy Wavell invited Congress and the
Muslim League to a summit conference at Simla. His goal was to bring
both parties into an expanded Executive Council. But the Congress and
League deadlocked. Jinnah insisted that all Muslim members of the
council would have to be Muslim Leaguers. The conference collapsed.
Shortly thereafter, the Labour Party won the general elections and
formed a government. The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, was a
Fabian Socialist who favored Indian freedom. The Secretary of State,
Lord Pethick-Lawrence, admired Gandhi. Sir Stafford Cripps
suggested that a constituent assembly be created in India. On August
21, 1945 Wavell announced that elections would be held during "the
cold weather."
The BLPI attacked the Wavell proposal as a ruse. The Trotskyists
flatly denied that the Labour government would give independence to
India. In fact, the Labour Party called only for Dominion status within
the Commonwealth, "if possible." Rita Hinden, the party's colonial
expert, evoked the old theory of "socialist trusteeship," calling for "a
closer relationship between nations based on mutual help, confidence,
and respect." I
The Trotskyists wanted Congress to "return to the road of
struggle." But Nehru cast his lot with Gandhi. The BLPI directed biting
propaganda at the Congress Socialists, pointing out their contradiction.
The Socialists wanted struggle, but refused to break with the
"bourgeois" Congress. But these barbs, fired from afar, carried little
Rita Hinden, The Labour Party and the Colonies (London, 1946), p. 9.
173
The Trotskyist Movement in India alld Ceylon
sting. If the Trotskyists had been working in the Congress Socialist

Party, as Philip Gunawardena had urged all along, they might have been
able to influence a chunk of the Congress left.
Both the Congress and the Muslim League mounted massive
election campaigns. The League thundered about Pakistan. The
Congressmen wrapped themselves in the glory of the Quit India
struggle. The CPI preached "Congress-League unity" ad nauseum. The
Stalinists supported both Congress and Muslim League candidates,
fielding Communist candidates only in select labor constituencies. And
even then, the CPI campaign was barely pink. The Stalinists promised
that, if elected, the party "shall not touch the small zamindar or the rich
peasant." 2
BLPI Election Strategy
In late September, 1945 the BLPI Central Committee met to formulate

a line on the elections. The Trotskyists debated their options. Should
they abstain? Support Congress? Call for critical support to the CPI?
Colvin de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene hit the nail on the head:
"The question is, therefore, what is the way the masses can show
through their vote their endorsement of the August Struggle and the
path of struggle without falling into the position of support for
Congress." 3 Their proposal was to judge each candidate by a single
criterion: did he endorse the Quit India struggle or not. If so, then the
BLPI could support that candidate.
Given the differences, the Central Committee decided to throw the
question out to the membership for internal debate. 4 A majority of the
Calcutta Unit favored the idea of supporting Congress candidates who
P.C. Joshi, For the Final Bid for Power (Bombay, 1945), p. 118.
Quoted in D.G. [Douglas Garbutt], "Report on the Fourth International Movement
in India." emphasis in original.
"C.C. Report Presented to Party Convention Beginning May 1, 1947," Internal

Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 1 [May 1947], p. 12. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
174
at least paid lip service to the Quit India movement. But they put more
teeth into their proposal. They added two additional criteria, namely
opposition to the Gandhian Constructive Programme and to Congress
trade unions. In the United Provinces the small BLPI group called for
outright support to Congress.
The Central Committee re-convened and after two days of debate
adopted the "conditional support" position. The party prepared an
election manifesto, appropriately titled Vote for August - Vote for
Struggle. 5 The whole thrust was a call for renewed struggle against
British imperialism. "We, Fourth Internationalists, say clearly to the
masses: the elections open no road to freedom from national subjection
and economic exploitation; they open the road only to a re-arranged
imperialist-bourgeois-feudalist alliance that can signify only imperialist
domination reinforced."
The manifesto attacked the "Pakistan" slogan as a "pipe dream of
the Muslim feudalists," a "imperialist manouevre," and a "deceitful
slogan." The manifesto also attacked "the Congress policy of refusing
the rights of independence and secession to Indian nationalities. We
stand for the fullest right of self-determination for all nationalities, but
we point out that the very opportunity for the exercise of these rights
can arise only outside the imperialist structure." [emphasis in original]
In terms of the vote, the manifesto called for a vote to "individual
Congressmen who give full political support to the August mass
struggle." The manifesto was quick to emphasize that this should not
be construed as political support for the "bourgeois" Congress. "We
vote not for Congress but for struggle." That was an inherently selfcontradictory line. A vote is a vote. There was no way that a voter could
register any other sentiments.
The CC resolution, "The Tasks of the Party in the Coming Elections," formed the
basis for the party's election manifesto, Vote for August. Vote for Struggle
[December, 1945]. The pamphlet was translated into Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, and
Hindi.
175
In any case the BLPI manifesto concluded that the elections really
weren't all that important anyway. "Let the imperialists and the
bourgeoisie patch up their new agreements: they cannot halt the masses
on the march. For the day, let us prepare! For the day, let us plan! In
elections, through elections, and, more, independent ofelections /" That
day came sooner than anyone expected.
Mass Demonstrations in Calcutta
In August, 1945 the government announced that imprisoned leaders of

the Indian National Army (lNA) would be brought to trial. The
Japanese had created the INA in 1942, after the fall of Singapore. The
Indian prisoners of war were offered a choice: dig latrines or switch
sides and fight the British. In 1943 the Japanese turned over this ragtag force to Subhas Chandra Bose, who had fled India at the start of the
war. Unfortunately for Subhas, his patrons were losing. In 1944 the
British routed the Japanese at Imphal and captured about 11,000 INA
soldiers. Subhas escaped from Rangoon, and died after his plane
crashed en route to China. The British eventually released all but 2,500
INA soldiers deemed to be "war criminals." In Bengal, where Bose was
revered like a demi-god, the student federation controlled by his party
called for a protest demonstration.
The BLPI endorsed the protest and demanded the immediate
release of the prisoners. 6 The BLPI group in Calcutta was ably led by
Kamalesh Bannerji, who had been released from jail after the war. The
BLPI had a number of activists working on the student front, including
P.K. Roy, his fiery sister, Suprova Roy, Satyen Koley, Sitanshu Das,
Haradhan Chatterji, Kamala Banerji, and Dhiresh Sanyal. 7 The
The Inside Story of the Calcutta Demonstrations (Calcutta, 1945), p. 12. Copy in
author's possession. Reprinted as "Les fusillades policieres de Calcutta,"
Quatrieme Internationale (August-s"eptember 1946), pp. 57-60.
Satyen Koley was a student at Presidency College. He became co-editor of the

BLPI's Bengali-Ianguage newspaper, Inquilab. along with Dulal Bose. Koley later
became the vice president of the Paschim Banga Patrika and Press Workers Union.
New Spark. 14 August 1948.
176
BLPI also had an organized following in the Revolutionary Socialist

Party, the main force behind the Bengal Provincial Students'
Federation, which endorsed the demonstration. 8
On November 21 the government watched anxiously as tens of
thousands of protestors poured into Wellington Square. The mood was
militant. The CPI requested to speak and was denied. 9 During the war
the Stalinists had villified Subhas Bose as a traitor, a rat, a puppet of
Joseph Goebbels and Tojo. 10 Some speakers ripped into the CPI for its
treachery during the war. The crowd then marched towards
Government House. The police blocked their path at Dharamtala Street.
The students squatted in the street. After three hours some students
tried to break through the police lines. Mounted police charged and
cracked heads. The police opened fire, killing two and wounding 33.
After several more hours of tense standoff a local Congress leader
arrived with the message that Sarat Bose, the leader of the Bengal
Congress and brother of Subhas, did not approve of their protest. The
Trotskyist students, led by Haradhan Chatterji, rose and "shouted out
that they never believed in the leader-cult. The students always fought
for a certain programme and never for the leaders. Whether the masses
were right or wrong, they said, the leaders must be with the masses to
guide them." 11 The students remained in the street until daybreak.
The next day nearly 100,000 people gathered at Wellington
Square. Sarat Bose appealed to the demonstrators to disperse. Instead,
the crowd surged toward Dalhousie, undeterred by police attacks along
its flank, advancing in an adrenalin rush. The students began to halt the
Letter from C.R. Govindan [Colvin de Silva] to Secretary, International Secretariat,
18 July 1945. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
Gautam Chattopadhyay, "Bengal Students in Revolt Against the Raj, 1945-46," in
Amit Kumar Gupta (ed.), Myth and Reality: The Struggle for Freedom in India,
1945-47 (New Delhi, 1987), p. 154.
10
Peoples' War portrayed Bose as a cur held up by Joseph Goebbels (13 September
1942), a mask for the Japanese (8 August 1942), a donkey carrying Tojo (19 July
1942), and a midget being led by Japanese imperialists (26 September 1943).
11
The Inside Story of the Calcutta Demonstrations, p. 3.
buses and trams. 12 As the violence escalated, the CPI, which controlled
the transport workers union, pulled the trams off the streets. The CPI,
however, was reacting to events, not leading the protests. The CPI
organzed a labor rally in Muhammad Ali Park, deliberately keeping the
workers separate from the students in Wellington Square. The CPI
called for an "enquiry" into the police violence, and left it at that. 13
The protests continued into the third day. The BLPI led two big
processions to Sraddhananda Park for a mass rally. The Trotskyist
youth, in the thick of the action, argued against senseless heroics or
adventurism. "The Trotskyist students who were seen addessing streetcorner meetings explained why interference with the military at the
given stage should be avoided." 14 Troops opened fire at least 14 times,
killing another 33 and wounding 200 more. A hundred and fifty police
and military vehicles were torched; 70 British and 37 American
soldiers were injured.
The Congress feared that the disorders were getting out of control.
Nehru told Sarat Bose to "get all these irresponsible demonstrations
ended, so that a normal atmosphere of peace may be created as soon as
possible." 15 The Congress President, Maulana Azad, appealed to the
students in Calcutta to desist from any more demonstrations. The
Congress student federation withdrew. The movement had reached a
critical juncture.
Communist "Peace Brigades"
The Stalinists joined with the Congress and Muslim League to defuse
the situation. The Central Intelligence Officer in Calcutta reported that
12
IJ
14
15
As the governor of Bengal subsequently described the events in a confidential

memorandum to Viceroy Wavell, "Interference with transport was at first mainly
by persuasion, though backed, of course, by threat of force. As the day proceeded,
interference became steadily more violent in character." IOL: LlPJ/5/152. File Po!.
615111946.
Hindustan Times, 23 November 1945.
The Inside Story o/the Calcutta Demonstrations, pp. 7-8.
Hindusthan Standard, 26 November 1945.
178
"there was a definite move on the part of both the CPI and the Congress
to take active steps to stop further disorders." 16 The governor of Bengal
reported, "Congress and some Communist propaganda cars toured the
affected areas dissuading the students from further participation." 17
These "peace brigades" worked. The crowds dispersed, not to
reappear the next day. 18 In other words, contrary to later Stalinist selfglorification as the "revolutionary" leadership, the CP! helped the
police and military to restore law and order. The more militant students
were livid. The Chief Secretary to the government of Bengal reported
to New Delhi that "the student leaders of the party [CPI] have lost their
following and influence over the students in the various educational
institutions in Calcutta." 19
The protests caused the government to retreat a little. A
communique announced that only those INA prisoners accused of
murder and brutality would be brought to trial. Moreover, the sentences
passed on the first trio were remitted. But the sentencing of the next
defendant, a Muslim, in February, 1946 provoked protests anew. The
Muslim students' organization in Bengal called for a mass protest. The
Trotskyists had influence in the Muslim student movement; a member
of the BLPI, V.A. Zuberi, was Secretary of the All Bengal Muslim
Students League.
Round Two
On February 11, 1946 the joint Hindu-Muslim students rally took place
in Calcutta. The Trotskyist activist, Haradhan Chatterji, was one of the
speakers. 20 When police fired on the students, rioting broke out.
16
11
18
19
20
Sucheta Mahajan, "British Policy, Nationalist Strategy and Popular National

Upsurge, 1945-46," in Amit Kumar Gupta (ed.), Myth and Reality: The Struggle
for Freedom in India, 1945-47, p. 98, footnote 281.
IOL: LlPJ/5/152. File Pol. 615111946.
Keka Dutta Ray, Political Upsurges in Post-War India, 1945-46 (New Delhi,
1992), p. 7.
IOL: LlPJ/5/152. File Pol. 6150/1946.
Interview with P.K. Roy and Dulal Bose, 2 February 1974.
179
Barricades were erected. The city's transport workers went on strike

that night. The following day jute workers responded with a hartal. By
noon half a million people flooded central Calcutta, chanting "Down
with British Imperialism!" and "Hindus, Muslims, unite!" The Indian
police and soldiers began to waver and were replaced by battlehardened British troops.
The British military took over the city. Teenagers lobbed Molotov
cocktails at the troops, who responded with automatic weapons. A
confidential military report vividly described the situation: "Riots are
very serious. Railway lines have been tom up at Naihati and Chalegar .
. . Kankinara Station and Tollygunj Tram Depot set on fire. All English
shops had their windows smashed, military lorries burnt. Bodies still
lying around Chowringhee area. North Calcutta is isolated." 21
Many rank-and-file Communists jumped into the thick of the
action. But the party leaders vacillated. The CPI admitted that it "failed
to assess the situation on the last two days and trailed behind the
events." 22 The real problem was the party line. How could the CPI lead
these protests when the Congress and League were united against
them? The government noted that the CPI refrained from calling a general
strike for that very reason. 23 The CPI held its labor demonstrations in
the suburbs, far from the militant students and street fighting.
The BLPI challenged the Communist student federation to
"completely and finally break with Congress and its leadership." 24 In a
21
22
23
24
Quoted in Gautam Chattopadhyaya, ''The Almost Revolution: India in February,

1946," Indian Left Review (April 1974), p. 37.
Gautam Chattopadhyay, "Bengal Students in Revolt Against the Raj, 1945-46," in
Amit Kumar Gupta (ed.), Myth and Reality: The Struggle/or Freedom in India,
1945-47, p. 167.
"The Communists played an important, though not the principal part in organizing
the ensuing disturbances and only the opposition of the leaders of the main political
parties prevented them from bringing about a general strike." IOL: LIPJ/12/432.
Pol.(S) 118/1947. The Chief Secretary of the Bengal government reported to New
Delhi, "It is not clear yet who were instigating the mobs and what part the
Communists played in the disturbances." IOL: LIPJ15/153. File Pol. 768511946.
Spark, no. 2 (Early March 1946), p. 6.
180
leaflet the BLPI called upon the radical students to "link themselves
with the proletarian class struggle and break with the bourgeois
Congress." 25 But the CPI leaders didn't sit on the fence very long.
Once again the CPI joined with the Congress and Muslim League to try
to calm the crowds. But the militants had experienced one Stalinist
betrayal and didn't want another. Crowds attacked the CPI "peace
vans." 26 The British put down the uprising after 72 hours. Over 200
were jailed, and 84 were killed.
The Naval Mutiny
Less than a week later the British government faced a new threat in
Bombay. Indian ratings (enlisted men) in the Royal Indian Navy
mutinied. Trouble had been brewing in the RIN for some time. The
ratings resented the bad food, low pay, and racist abuse from their
commanding officers. The INA trials had an effect, too. As one rating
recalled, "For the first time, many of us started feeling: What have we
been fighting for-the preservation of empire? Shouldn't our own
country be free?" 27
The ratings decided to mutiny to get the attention of Congress. "If
all of us refuse to eat breakfast, that will be mutiny; and once the
mutiny happens, we'll take over the navy. Once we take over the navy,
those national leaders who have gone underground to fight the British
will come and lead us." 28 Some approached the CPI in Bombay.
However, the CPI leaders refused to support their plan and told the
ratings "to stay with the rest." 29 The ratings got a better reception from
Aruna Asaf Ali, the Congress Socialist Party leader. The fact is the
ratings were on their own from the start.
25
Spark, no. 3 (Late March 1946), p. 6.
26
Keka Dutta Ray, Political Upsurges in Post-War India, 1945-46, p. 14.

B.C. Dutt, Mutiny of the Innocents, quoted in Zareer Masani, Indian Tales of the
Raj (Berke\ey, 1987), p. 123.
Quoted in Zareer Masani,Indian Tales of the Raj, p. 125.
Subrata Banerjee, "R.I.N. Mutiny," in Ravi Dayal (ed.), We Fought Together for
Freedom: Chaptersfram the Indian National Movement (New Delhi, 1995), p. 224.
27
28
29
181
The revolt started on Monday, February 18, 1946 at the RIN shore
signal school, HMIS Talwar. After confronting their officers the
ringleaders seized the communications room and broadcast their revolt
to every ship and shore base. A little after midnight ratings at HMIS
Hernia joined the mutiny. The revolt spread quickly to 22 ships in
Bombay harbour and the Castle Barracks and Fort Barracks shore
bases. Many petty officers, and a few ranking officers, joined the
rebels.
The next morning mutineers seized military vehicles in the
dockyards and drove around Bombay shouting slogans in support of
the INA prisoners. The Central Strike Committee issued a leaflet which
ended with the call, "Long live the solidarity of workers, soldiers,
students and peasants. Long live the Revolution!" 30 The ratings were
in a celebratory mood. The government held back while the ratings
held a peaceful mass rally and led an orderly march in Bombay.
BLP. - First to Strike
The BLPI was the first party in Bombay to call for a general strike in
support of the mutiny. "As news of the Naval Mutiny spread through
Bombay," remembers Indra Sen, "the BLPI got its followers together
and decided to call a general strike. Our night workers in the textile
mills-Prabhakar More and Lakshman Jadhav-Ied the third-shift
workers out of the mills. By early morning we had issued a leaflet. We
painted the word, 'Hartal!', on the sidewalks." 31
Douglas Garbutt, a British Trotskyist in uniform who was working
with the BLPI in Bombay at that point, corroborated that account. He
wrote to his comrades in London, "I can tell you that our friends played
a leading role in Bombay-the general strike can be directly traced to
them, as the first workers to come out were ours and were carrying a
30
Quoted in Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking ofBritish India (New
York, 1998), p. 593.
31
Interview with Indra Sen, 1 February 1974.
182
flag with our device on it!" 32 The "device" refers to the emblem of the
Fourth International-the hammer and sickle with the numeral four.
While the Trotskyists might have been the first to hit the streets,
the general strike in Bombay was essentially spontaneous. The ratings
had appealed to the people of Bombay for support. The textile workers
responded, shutting down 70 of Bombay's 74 cotton mills. On the
morning of the hartal the CPI leadership took out a procession of
30,000 trade-unionists. The Stalinists chanted, "Congress, League, and
Communists, unite!" 33 The CPI emphasized that the hartal should give
"peaceful expression to the protest against military atrocities." 34
The BLPI sent members down to the dock area to make contact
with the mutineers. But the British had massed troops around the shore
stations, cutting the rebels off from the city. Ramesh Karkal, the BLPI
organizer in Bombay, recalled, "we were beset on all sides by triggerhappy British tomies." 35 At Castle Barracks the ratings broke into the
armoury, seized three machine guns and 150 rifles, and blazed away at
British troops for eight hours. Indian gunners on two ships joined the
battle. The revolt spread to 30,000 sailors on 20 shore bases and 78 ships.
Vice-Admiral Godfrey threatened to sink every rebellious ship, if
the ratings didn't surrender quickly. The British were worried that the
rebellion would spread. Military intelligence warned that not a single
naval or air force unit was trustworthy. 36 Indian soldiers refused to fire
on the mutineers. Men in the Royal Indian Air Force camps and Royal
34
Letter from Douglas Garbutt to Frank [E.R. Frank], 29 April 1946. Hoover: SWP
Papers, box 38. The SWP solidarized with the uprising: Robert Birchman,
"Revolutionary Developments in India," Fourth International (May 1946), pp.
158-59; and Indra Sen, "India Correspondence, Fourth International (October
1946), pp. 310-12.
G Adhikari (ed.), Strike: The Story o/the Strike in the Indian Navy (New Delhi,
1946).
3S
Socialist Appeal [New Delhi], vol. 2, no. 17, late September 1953.
36
Cited in Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking o/British India, p. 598.
32
33
183
Indian Army Service Corps solidarized with the ratings. Ground crews
mutinied in Madras, Karachi, Poona, Allahabad, and Delhi. Nearly
2,000 men in the Royal Indian Army Signal Corps mutinied near
Jabalpur. There were mini-revolts by Indian gunners in Madras,
signallers at Allahabad, and clerical staff at army headquarters in Delhi.
The government had the full support of the Congress and the
Muslim League. On Friday, February 22 the head of the Bombay
Muslim League and the secretary of the Bombay Provincial Congress
Committee called the governor to express "their anxiety to allay the
disturbances, and offering the help of volunteers to assist the police." 37
Gandhi declared that "a combination between Hindus and Muslims and
others for the purpose of violent action was unholy." 38
As the gunfire boomed over Bombay, throngs vented their anger at
symbols of British authority, like banks, post offices, and shops. The
Chief Secretary reported that it was the Congress Socialists, not the
Communists, who were whipping up the "large unruly element." 39
Workers dug up the streets and built barricades. The mill districts
looked like a battle zone. "At a number of places," reported the
Bombay governor, John Colville, "the mob offered determined
resistance, erecting road blocks and covering them from nearby
buildings; anyone who tried to clear the road block was stoned." 40
Jawaharlal Nehru's sister could never forget the sights and sounds of
the battle. "For three days and three nights the shooting and rioting
went on as the city rose in sympathy with the sailors." 41
In Karachi the mutineers who seized the HMIS Hindustan fired on
British troops with its four-inch gun and Oerliken canon. A crowd of
37
IOL: LlPJ/51167. File Pol. 730411946. Reprinted in N. Mansergh (ed.),

Constitutional Relations Between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power,
1942-7 (London, 1971-83), Vol. 6, pp. 1081-82.
38
Sum it Sarkar, Modern India (New Delhi, 1983), p. 425.
39
IOL: LlPJ/5/167. File Pol. 7392/1946.
40
IOL: LlPJ/5/167. File Pol. 7304/1946.
41
Krishna Nehru Hutheesingh, We Nehrus (New York, 1967), p. 179-80.
184
over 4,000 civilians defied a ban on demonstrations and clashed with

the police. The CPI got cold feet; "many Communist leaders, heeding
the alarm raised by the authorities, had backed out of the situation." 42
The next day the Hindustan dueled with shore batteries for two hours,
leaving six sailors dead and 25 wounded. A huge crowd gathered at the
Id Gah maidan to support the mutineers. Faced with this situation
"many Communist leaders decided against holding the meeting at Id
Gah but the crowd refused dispersal and instead attacked the police." 43
The CPI leaders flinched and then retreated. 44
The Myth of "Honorable" Communist Leadership
In 1974 the Marxist historian, Gautam Chattopadhyaya, published an

influential retrospective analysis of the INA demonstrations and the
RIN mutiny. 45 He had been a Communist student leader in Calcutta
during that period. He aptly called the crisis of February, 1946 "the
almost revolution." But he also whitewashed the role of the CPI. He
claimed that, despite "initial hesitations and confusions," the CPI was
"the only major political party that behaved honorably" and tried to
give revolutionary leadership in opposition to "the pernicious influence
of the compromising leadership of the Congress and the Muslim
League."
The facts belie that claim. The CPI worked hand in glove with the
Congress and League to restore law and order. In Bombay the CPI,
42
43
44
45
Anirudh Deshpande, "Sailors and the Crowd: Popular Protest in Karachi, 1946,"
The Indian Economic and Social History Review, vo!. 26, no. I (January-March
1989), p. 12.
Anirudh Deshpande, "Sailors and the Crowd: Popular Protest in Karachi, 1946,"
p. 12.
Anirudh Deshpande, "Sailors and the Crowd: Popular Protest in Karachi,
1946,"p.13.
Gautam Chattopadhyaya, "The Almost Revolution: India in February, 1946,"
Indian Left Review (April 1974), p. 45. This article initiated what has become a
tendency in Indian historiography to "rehabilitate" and prettify the CPI as much as
possible. See for example Sumit Sarkar, "Popular Movements and National
Leadership, 1945-47," Economic and Political Weekly, April 1982, pp. 677-89.
185
Muslim League, and Congress "went around asking citizens to keep

the peace." 46 In Karachi the CPI held a joint meeting with the Congress
and Muslim League "to decide on measures to restore peace in the
city." 47 The CPI formed "peace brigades" to disperse militant student
demonstrations. 48 Chattopadhyaya neglected to cite what the CPI itself
said at that time. The Communist newspaper, National Front, ran an
editorial that demanded an end to "mob violence" and "mass hysteria."
49 "What is most essential is that the whole campaign based on the
glorification of' August' and the INA heroes should now stop."
Outgunned and cut off from the city, the ratings surrendered
Saturday morning, February 23. The military arrested over 1,300
ratings and dismissed 1,000, contrary to Patel's promise of no
victmization. Even after the ratings surrendered, there was sporadic
resistance in the mill districts of Bombay. Tanks rumbled through the
streets. Small groups fought guerrilla style. Mosquito bombers roared
overhead. The British light carrier, Glasgow, guns at the ready, steamed
into the harbour. Sympathy strikes continued in Calcutta, Madras,
Madura, and Trichinopoly.
The CPI issued an appeal on Monday, February 25 for all workers
to return to work the next day. 50 The CPI dissociated itselffrom a strike
held that very day to protest the repression. The CPI did, however,
stage a joint rally in Calcutta with Sardar Patel-the man most
responsible for duping the sailors into surrender. 51
46
Sucheta Mahajan, "British Policy, Nationalist Strategy and Popular National

Upsurge, 1945-46," p. 82.
47
"Mutiny in the RIN and concerned disturbances," report compiled by K.R. Eates,
DSP, Sindh CID, National Archives ofIndia: Home-Political 5114/46, cited in
Anirudh Deshpande, "Sailors and the Crowd: Popular Protest in Karachi,
1946,"p.13.
Janata, 10 March 1946.
48
49
National Front, 3 March 1946. The editorial was headlined, "Mob Violence and
After."
50
Times of India, 25 February 1946.
51
186
"Down with the Cabinet Mission!"
The day after the Bombay mutiny broke out Prime Minister AttIee
announced to the House of Commons that His Majesty's Government
would send a cabinet mission to India. The delegation arrived on March
24, 1946, and after touring India for three months invited the Congress
and Muslim League to another summit conference at.Simla. By this
time the Muslim League's position on Pakistan had hardened into an
all-or-nothing ultimatum. 52 The Congress and the League again locked
horns over the issue of communal representation. Wavell announced
that the conference had failed.
The Cabinet Mission announced its own plan. As a short-term'
solution an "Interim Government," based on the Indian parties, would
be formed to carry out day-to-day administration. In the long run India
would remain a single union. But the provinces would be grouped into
three zones, so that the Muslim League would be guaranteed a majority
in the drafting of Constitutions for the Northwest and Northeast
provinces. The Muslim League accepted the plan. The Congress
pressured Wavell to back down on the parity formula for forming an
Interim Government. Crying betrayal, the Muslim League withdrew its
support and refused to participate in a Constituent Assembly.
The BLPI denounced the plan as "divide and rule" par
excellence. 53 "We say boldly that, although no real 'transfer of power'
is coming out of this Cabinet Mission and its negotiations, a settlement
certainly is coming... A settlement is coming between our imperialist
rulers, their bourgeois competitor-partners, and their feudalist and
communalist henchmen." 54 The BLPI raised the slogans, "Down with
the Cabinet Mission! Down with the collaborationist parties! Down
52
Jinnah had got the League to pledge to fight for Pakistan. H.S. Suhrawardy, the
Muslim League boss in Bengal, vowed, "Let me honestly declare that every
Muslim of Bengal is ready and prepared to lay down his life." Quoted in Stanley
Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan (New York, 1984), p. 260.
53
Spark, no. 5 (Late April 1946), p. 1.
54
Spark, no. 4 (Early April 1946), p. 1.
187
with imperialism's fake Constituent Assembly! On with the struggle for

India's independence!" 55
The BLPI condemned the proposed Constituent Assembly as
"hopelessly unreal" and "a device to cloak the real imperialist designs
and intentions of our rulers." 56 But the Trotskyists did not counterpose
a demand for a genuine constituent assembly. Meeting in June, 1946
the BLPI central committee decided that "( 1) there was nothing in the
program to prevent our advancing the slogan of Constituent Assembly
in suitable circumstances and (2) the development of events thus far in
relation to the Cabinet Mission negotiations do not necessitate this
slogan being advanced." 57 The rationale was that "the Congress itself
was not claiming the so-called Constituent Assembly to be a real
Constituent Assembly."
After the Muslim League rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan, Nehru
changed his mind. The Congress entered the "Interim Government" in
Delhi in December, 1946. At that point the BLPI central committee
"felt it necessary to put forward the slogan of a Revolutionary
Constituent Assembly elected on universal franchise and outside the
orbit of British Imperialism, as a propaganda slogan in order to expose
the fake character of the 'Constituent Assembly' that was in session." 58
The BLPI emphasized that "it is essential first to drive the British
armed forces out of India and to smash its rotten and corrupt
administrative and police machinery." 59
Great Calcutta Killing
In August, 1946 events took another unexpected turn. Jinnah decided

that violence was the only language the British understood. He called
55
Free Press Journal, 22 June 1946.
56
Spark, no. 8 (Late June 1946), p. 5.
57
"C.C. Report Presented to Party Convention Beginning May 21, 1947," p. 12.
58
"c.c. Report Presented to Party Convention," p. 12.
59
New Spark, 26 Apri11947.
188
on Muslims to resort to "direct action" on August 16. Muslim

politicians whipped up passions. The mayor of Calcutta made
inflammatory sectarian appeals: "By fighting you will go to heaven in
this holy war." 60 Congress leaders called on Hindus to break the
Muslim hartal. As Direct Action Day drew near, both Muslims and
Hindus bought weapons on the black market.
At dawn on August 16 the killing began; "Moslem mobs howling
in a quasi-religious fervor came bursting from their slums, waving
clubs, iron bars, shovels, any instrument capable of smashing in a
human skull ... They savagely beat to a pulp any Hindu in their path and
left the bodies in the city's open gutters." 61 The rampaging mobs
torched Hindu bazaars, often burning the trapped Hindus alive. It didn't
take long for the Hindu mobs to retaliate in kind.
"People were stabbed, shot, and chopped," recalled Vivienne
Goonewardene, the BLPI leader w~o was witness to the pogroms.
"Death screams and shouts of triumph were heard on all sides; the
whole area was covered with a black smoke and the stench of
gunpowder was heavy in the nostrils. The violence lasted for three days.
Public dirt-bins were overflowing with severed limbs. Toilets could not
be flushed for the sewers were blocked with human carcasses. Vultures
could be seen carrying aloft a hand here, an arm there." 62
The Ceylonese comrades had never experienced anything like this.
There had been anti-Muslim riots in Ceylon in 1915. But they were
nothing like the killing in Calcutta. Hector Abhayavadhana could never
forget the carnage. "This was a direct experience of mass politics, but
of the most degrading kind." 63 By the time the slaughter subsided four
days later, over 6,000 men, women, and children had been massacred
and another 20,000 were wounded.
60
61
62
63
Quoted in LeonardA. Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj (New York, 1990), p. 566.
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight (New York,
1975), p. 35.
Pulsara Liyanage, Vivi: A Biography of Vivienne Goonewardena (Colombo, 1998),
pp. 42-43.
189
The BLPI acknowledged the setback. "The communal eruption has

covered the entire body politic ofIndia with its ulcers. Through the pus
that pours from them is drained away the life blood of the masses and
with it, the fertility of the forces of progress." 64 The riots stopped the
labor movement in its tracks. Many workers were afraid to go to work.
A number of jute mills closed. The BLPI Central Committee reported
that "no kind of work was possible" during and after the riots. 65
Whistling Past the Graveyard?
In hindsight the Great Calcutta Killing was a watershed. The British

government recognized the change. The Viceroy feared that India was
slipping into anarchy. He was so alarmed that he prepared secret plans for
an emergency evacuation ofIndia. Some members ofthe BLPI argued that
the party needed to rethink its line on the Muslim League and the question
of communalism. That prompted an important debate within the BLPI.
A group of Calcutta comrades, including Kamalesh Bannerji,
argued that the Muslim League no longer was just a "feudalist" prop to
the government. Jinnah in fact had become the spoiler. His demand for
Pakistan was no longer a pipe dream. The events in Calcutta proved
that Muslims were willing to kill and die for a separate homeland.
Bannerji argued that the Muslim League, though still a reactionary
party, could play an oppositional role "under certain circumstances."
Bannerji and his co-thinkers urged the party to stop branding the
Muslim League as feudalist and hopelessly reactionary, since that
would only drive the Muslim masses deeper into communalism. 66
64
New Spark, 25 October 1947, p. 2.
65
"C.C. Report Presented to Party Convention Beginning May 21,1947," p. 11.
66
Mahmoud, Roby, Bibhuti, Sinha, Gopal, and Chitra, "Feudalism and its Role in
India," resolution discussed in the Calcutta Unit of the BLPI, 8 September 1946,
pp. 6-9. Hull: Haston, DJH/15GI14b. H. Mishra and Z.H. Khan, "Correcting
Comrade Colvin's Mistakes," Internal Bulletin. vo\. 2, no. 2 (10 August 1947), p.
10. Hoover: LSH, box 52. P.K. Roy, "Marxism versus Pedantic Schematism,"
Internal Bulletin. vo\. 2, no. 2 (10 August 1947), p. 6; Raj Narayan, "Who is
Wrong? Colvin or Mishra?," Internal Bulletin. vo\. 3, no. 1 (1 March 1948), pp.
21-23. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
190
Colvin de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene, the two most senior

Ceylonese leaders in the BLPI, defended the existing line ofthe party. 67
In their opinion the Muslim League remained a feudalist party. They
rejected the idea that the party had to change either its line or the tenor
of its propaganda. Philip Gunawardena had been right: they were
dogmatic book-worms who couldn't see what was happening right
before their very eyes. The Muslims didn't fit their scholastic Marxist
definition of a nation. But Pakistan had just been born in the bloody
alleys of Calcutta.
Despite the spread of commun!ll violence, the BLPI tried to look
on the bright side. "The Fourth International movement in India can
face the future with real hope and confidence. For, unlike in China,
Germany and Spain, the Stalinists have not yet had the opportunity of
leading the working class to any major defeat. The Indian working
class, young and vigorous, has suffered no serious disaster to
demoralise it and sap its faith in itself and its future." 68 That was
wishful thinking. The BLPI would need a better compass if it was
going to survive the storms looming on the horizon.
67
Colvin R. de Silva, "The Muslim League, Its Class Role, and the Riots," Internal
Bulletin (23 April 1947), pp. 1-7. Hoover: LSH, box 52. Also K. Tilak [Leslie
Goonewardene], "Character of Direct Action by the League," resolution discussed
in the Calcutta Unit of the BLPI, 8 September 1946, pp. 1-6. Hull: Haston, DJH/
15G/14b.
68
K. Tilak [Leslie Goonewardene], The Rise and Fall of the Comintern: From the
First to the Fourth International (Bombay, 1947), p. 122.
191
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Race Against Time

As the fateful year 1947 began, India seemed to be heading in different
directions all at once. There were communal riots as weIl as militant
strikes. The British wanted to puII their hands out of the boiling
cauldron. The Labour government sacked WaveIl and appointed Lord
Mountbatten to be Viceroy. He was given the mandate to solve the
mess in India. Yet the Congress and Muslim League remained
deadlocked. The days of the Raj were numbered. But no one knew how
many were left.
The BLPI remained optimistic. Yet the gap between ends and
means was enormous. The BLPI only had a couple hundred members.
Most of the Ceylonese cadres who had been living in India returned
home. I The national office in Bombay couldn't even afford to buy a
typewriter. In 1946 the government forced the BLPI to shut down its
newspaper, Spark, after only five months. The Trotskyists were
muzzled for the next crucial nine months. The BLPI resumed a newspaper,
New Spark, only in April, 1947, just four months l>efore Independence.
De~pite
these obstacles, the BLPI made progress. In Bengal and

South India the BLPI organized unions and led militant strikes. In
Madras the BLPI captured the leadership of the largest and oldest union
in India. The Madras branch led one of the longest and largest strikes
in the immediate postwar period. Catapulted into positions of mass
leadership, the BLPI found itself fighting not only powerful employers,
but also the new Congress governments. The BLPI had to shoulder the
responsibilities of mass leadership before it had even stabilized as a
propaganda group.
Colvin de Silva, Leslie and Vivienne Goonewardene, and V. Karalasingham went

back to Colombo, leaving Selina Perera, Hector Abhayavardhana and B.M.K.
Ramaswamy in India. S.C.C. Anthony Pillai and his wife, Caroline, initially went
back to Ceylon but later returned and settled in Madras.
192
The Setback in Ceylon
On June 24, 1945 the Ceylon government finally released the LSSP
members from jail at Badulla. The LSSP staged a huge show of support
for the party that the government once had pronounced dead. The
motorcade which brought the party members back to Colombo passed
crowd after crowd of waving villagers who had been mobilized for the
event. In Colombo thousands turned out to wildly cheer the two most
popular leaders, Philip Gunawardena and N.M. Perera.
Behind the scenes, however, the picture was not so rosy. An
American Trotskyist sailor who put ashore in Colombo a week after
the prisoners were released reported that the comrades were divided
along the old factional lines. "From what I can gather each group is
going over the other's documents and past actions with a microscope
looking for flaws." 2 The situation was tense. Philip Gunawardena
hadn't forgiven Doric de Souza. He and his followers gave the local
BLPI group the cold shoulder.
In a formal sense the Regional Committee (RC) was the
official section of the BLPI in Ceylon. But Philip and his supporters
had little regard for such formality. In their view the RC was simply a
rump group, dominated by Doric and his faction. 3 That was
essentially true. Moreover, there was an important group ofLSSP trade
unionists, led by W.J. ("Hospital") Perera, who had been
functioning independently in the name of the LSSP since 1943. These
workers had been loyal to Philip all along. Hospital Perera led strikes
during the war and captured the government workers unions in
"Personal Report On B.L.P.I.," unsigned, 12 July 1945. Hoover: SWP Papers, box
38. Others also reported that both sides nursed their old grudges and suspicions.
See "Report by a Ceylon Comrade," Internal Bulletin, no. 2 (September 1945), pp.
14-15. Hull: Haston, DJH/15G114b.
Philip Gunawardena had the position, since 1943, that the BLPI was pretty much a
"fiction." He stated that the BLPI "existed merely on paper and at the moment the
supplies were cut off from Ceylon the whole thing would fizzle out." Cited by
Kamalesh Bannerji, in "Extracts from CC Representative's Report to Secretary, CC
ofBLPI," Internal Bulletin (10 April 1947), p. 6. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
193
Colombo. 4 He was openly hostile to the RC. During the strike wave in
Colombo in 1945, he issued leaftlets warning the workers not to trust
the "Parlour Bolsheviks" who had usurped the mantle of the LSSP. 5
Philip offered to meet the RC halfway. He proposed that the RC be
re-constituted according to a 5-5-1 formula: the five incumbents, five
new members selected by Philip's group, plus a "neutral" eleventh
member. This interim committ~e would convene a party conference, at
which the delegates would elect a new leadership. The RC accepted
this proposal.
The two sides met on July 12, 1945. I have not been able to find
minutes or any other documentation from this meeting. But apparently
the two sides couldn't agree on a "neutral" member. It is unclear Why.
Whatever the reason, the Trotskyist movement in Ceylon would pay
dearly for that failure.
After the aborted unity, Philip and N.M. Perera went their own
way, as if the RC didn't exist. They played the media, toured the island,
and visited LSSP members and sympathizers who had fallen away
during the war. They held their meetings in the name of the LSSP. They
resumed the familiar old Samasamajist. Outflanked, the doctrinaire
Trotskyists in the RC saw all this as an attempt to turn the clock back,
to revive the old "Menshevik LSSP" of the prewar years.
When strikes flared in Colombo in late 1945, Phi lip and N.M.
Perera were making headlines once again. Phi lip formed an alliance
with A. Gunasekera, the head of the Ceylon Federation of Labour
(CFL). Gunasekera was a follower of M.N. Roy in India. He had
supported the war and become a trade-union boss. While the purists in
the BLPI saw this as gross opportunism, Philip pulled off a spectacular
coup. Philip was adept at the bear hug tactic. He took over the CFL.
Leslie Goonewardene, A Short History a/the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, pp. 22-23.
"The Ceylon Unit in the Recent Colombo Strike Wave," Internal Bulletin, no. 2
(September 1945), p. 13. Hull: Haston, DJHI1SG/14b.
194
The LSSP portrayed the BLPI group as "Parlour Bolsheviks" who

delighted in irrelevant hair-splitting debates. 6 During the strike wave
in Colombo, "Hospital" Perera urged workers to chase away
"intellectuals who drive around in cars distributing leaflets." 7 The
BLPI, on the other hand, denounced the LSSP as a "petty-bourgeois
grouping" that refused to accept party discipline. 8 None of this namecalling made any sense to the public. In fact, the two groups were pretty
much carbon copies of each other.
On October 8, 1945 the Central Committee of the BLPI expelled
Philip and N.M. Perera for setting up a rival organization. 9 The
situation went from bad to worse. Philip Gunawardena resorted to
Stalinist methods of slander and thuggery. In a public speech he stated
that Doric de Souza was a police spy. The Communist party pointed to
this feuding as proof that Trotskyists were agents of the enemy.
Re-Unification
At the end of 1945 the LSSP proposed unity to the Ceylon unit of the
BLPI. The Ceylon unit duly referred the matter to its parent, the Central
Committee of the BLPI in India. The BLPI Central Committee didn't
accept the unity offer until June 1, 1946. It is unclear why there was
such a long delay. In any case the BLPI leadership imposed one
condition: Philip had to either repudiate his charge against Doric and
make a "suitable apology" or submit the matter to a party "court of
Philip Gunawardena mocked the BLPI as a party of lawyers who loved to make
formalistic arguments. Many ofthe BLPI leaders in Ceylon had in fact been trained
as lawyers: Colvin de Silva, Leslie Goonewardene, Edmund Samarakkody,
Cholomondeley Goonewardene, William Silva, and Jack Kotelewala.
"The Ceylon Unit in the Recent Colombo Strike Wave," Internal Bulletin, no. 2
(September 1945), p. 14. Hull: Haston, DJH/15G/14b.
Fight, 13 November 1945, p. 4.
"The Split-away from the Lanka Samasamaja Party, Ceylon Unit ofthe BolshevikLeninist Party of India, Section of the Fourth International," Resolution of the
Central Committee of the BLPI, 8 October 1945, reprinted in Fight, 13 November
1945, p. 2.
195
The Trotskyist Movement in India. and Ceylon
inquiry" and abide by its decision. 10 The LSSP accepted the proposal
four months later, and Philip opted for a court of enquiry.
The two Trotskyist groups merged their leaderships in September,
1946. The unification was formalized at a Unity Conference in
November. The unified group took the name LSSP and kept the
Samasamajist as the party newspaper. There were disputes, however,
over certain members being admitted to the party. The BLPI side
complained that the LSSP had admitted "petty bourgeois radicals" and
other "non-Bolshevik" ilk into its ranks. The BLPI leadership in India
sent Kamalesh Bannerji, the most senior Indian Trotskyist, to
investigate and to conduct the Court of Inquiry.
Kamalesh Bannerji vetted the membership list and nixed 28
members, all from the LSSP side. The LSSP leaders cried foul.
Kamalesh Bannerji thus was compromised even before he convened
the Court ofInquiry. He was a "court of one." That, too, was a mistake.
In the Leninist tradition a Control Commission normally would have
several membe"rs. In any case Philip participated fully in the
proceedings. A young recruit, R.S. Bhagawan, functioned as the
secretary.
Philip could only produce circumstantial evidence to back his
accusation. He rested his case on the fact that during the war Doric
used the brother of a police officer, Wijesooniya, as a courier to carry a
letter to the comrades in India. 11 Bannerji stated that "there is not an
iota of evidence" to support Philip's accusation against Doric de Souza.
12 Furious, Philip denounced the proceedings, refused to abide by the
decision, and stated his intention to appeal to the Fourth International. 13
10
"Extract from C.C. Resolution of 1-6-46," Special Internal Bulletin, BLPI, n.d.
[1947], p. 1.
11
"An Analysis of the Judgement," in Internal Bulletin [LSSP], vol. 1, no. 2 (March
1947), p. 10. Reprinted in Samasamajist, 1 June 1947. Although the document is
not signed, there's no doubt that it was Philip's.
12
Special Internal Bulletin, BLPI, n.d. [1947], p. 1. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 45.
13
"An Analysis of the Judgement," p. 10.
The verdict precipitated a new crisis in the Ceylon party. On

December 31 the BLPI gave Philip two weeks to comply, i.e. to make a
public apology for his accusation against Doric de Souza. The Ceylon
group split down the middle. On January 7 the LSSP voted to neither
accept nor reject the ultimatum until a party conference could be
convened. Robert Gunawardena, the acting secretary, curtly informed
the BLPI that, while welcoming its "guidance and general direction,"
the Ceylon unit would not carry out orders "which are in conflict with
the general advantages of the revolutionary working class
movement." 14 That was outright defiance.
De-Unification
At the next party meeting N.M. Perera declared that Philip was still a
member. Colvin de Silva and his supporters walked out. On February
10 the BLPI Central Committee voted to expel Philip. Bannerji was
sent back to Ceylon to enforce the decision. At the meeting, on
February 19, the motion to remove Philip was narrowly defeated.
Bannerji declared the Ceylon party committee dissolved and walked
out with his six supporters. 15
The BLPI denounced the LSSP as a "split-away." 16 While
admitting that the LSSP had not yet "clearly deviated in political line,"
the BLPI predicted that the LSSP would deepen its "organizational
Menshevism" and regress into "a party resembling the LSSP at its
formation in 1935." 17 The LSSP, on the other hand, mocked the BLPI
14
15
16
17
Letter from R. Gunawardena to Acting Secretary, CC BLPI, 14 January 1947,

Internal Bulletin, vol. 1, no. 2 (March 1947), p. 5.
Kamalesh Bannerji, "Statement of Comrade Kamalesh Banerjee, CC
Representative in Ceylon, to All Members of the LSSP, Ceylon Unit of BLPI,"
Internal Bulletin [BLPI], n.s. (10 April 1947), pp. 1-6. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
"To All Members of the LSSP, Ceylon Unit of the BLPI," 24 February 1947,
Internal Bulletin (10 April 1947), pp. 1-6; and "Convention on Ceylon Split," New
Spark, 7 June 1947, p. 8.
"The Marxist Movement in Ceylon: Appendix to Program of Bolshevik Leninist
Party ofIndia," reprinted in New International, February 1947, p. 50.
197
as a party of lawyers and "Bohemian intellectuals" who were playing

at revolutionary politics. The LSSP demanded that the "selfconstituted, bureaucratic, and sectarian" Central Committee of the
BLPI be dissolved immediately. 18
The two groups contested the 1947 elections to the new
parliament as separate parties. During the campaign the United
National Party railed against Indian immigration. Both the BLPI and
LSSP vigorously defended the citizenship rights of the Tamil plantation
workers. The BLPI demanded no restrictons whatsoever on Indian
immigration, while the LSSP advocated full citizenship rights for all
who had been domiciled on the island for five years. The communal
issue probably hurt the BLPI more than the LSSP, since the BLPI
flaunted its connection with India. 19
Bombay
In 1945 the government flattened the Bombay branch of the BLPI for
the third time. The BLPI had to rebuild almost from scratch. The party
groups in Calcutta, Madras, and Colombo sent comrades to Bombay.
Indra Sen, a member of the central committee, moved from Calcutta.
R.H. Vanniasingham, .a member of the Ceylon unit, became the
secretary. The BLPI also appealed to the British section of the Fourth
International to send reinforcements. 20 The British party gave up V.S.S.
Sastry, one of their most effective organizers. 21 Ajit Roy, another
member of the central committee, followed later.
18
"Letter of Secretaries of Conference of Split Group to Secretary, CC of BLPI,"

signed by Rowland Jayasekara, M.T. Solomon, and Malalasekara, 1 March 1947,
and "Reply of Bureau," signed K. Tilak [Leslie Goonewardene], 1 April 1947,
reprinted in Internal Bulletin [BLPI], n.s. (l0 April 1947), p. 7-8.
.
19
George Jan Lerski, "The Twilight of Ceylonese Trotskyism," Pacific Affairs. vo\.
43, no. 3 (Fall 1970), p. 386.
20
21
Letter from Indra Sen toA.K. [Ajit Roy], n.d. [ca. 1944-45].
The British government regarded Sastry as one of the most effective and dangerous
revolutionary organizers in England. IOL: LlPJIl2/645. Files Po\.(S) 787/1942 and
Po\.(S) 592/1942. Also IOL: LlPJ/12/485. File Po\.(S) 514/1943. IOL: LlPJ/121
649. File Po\.(S) 111/1943. IOL: LlPJ/12/645. Files Po\.(S) 694/1942 and Po\.(S)
98711942.
198
Even with these reinforcements, the Bombay branch limped along.

The BLPI didn't have the financial resources to support full-time party
workers. 22 Moreover, the reinforcements were all "outsiders," lacking
roots in the city and unable to speak the local languages. One foreign
Trotskyist visitor observed, "A small group of assorted Madrasis,
Bengalis, and Ceylonese trying to build a unit in Bombay is
comparable to a situation in which a group of Austrians, Frenchmen,
and Poles attempt the task of building a Trotskyist party in, for
example, Britain." 23
The Bombay group needed more "locals." And it got them by
"raiding" its Trotskyist rival, the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party (BMP), led
by Chandravadan Shukla. After he split away from the BLPI in 1943,
Shukla recruited some talented youth. The BLPI made a concerted
effort to win over these recruits; V. Sastry was very effective in
developing a pro-BLPI faction in the BMP, consisting of Anant
Mandekar, Tulsi Boda, and Shanta Patel.
Shukla responded with a rather disingenuous unity proposal. 24 The
International Secretariat of the FI, however, insisted that Shukla
repudiate his split in 1943 as a precondition for unity. 2S That he would
not do. Faced with a revolt in his ranks, he convened a conference and
22
Sastry worked as a journalist and headed a news agency in Bombay.

Vanniasingham was a Chartered Accountant. He had difficulty getting work in
Bombay and eventually left.
23
"Report by JF on the Activities of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India During

1947," 18 December 1947. Hull: Haston, DJH/15G/14b.
Shukla called for a conference to form a single Fourth Internationalist party in
India. Manifesto of the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party of India (Bombay [1946]), p. 10.
Hull: Brynmor Jones Library.
Letter from R. Clapper [Bert Cochran], International Secretariat, F.l., to Bolshevik
Mazdoor Party, 25 November 1944. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38. Bert Cochran
had taken over the position of IS Secretary from Jean van Heijenoort. Since his
split in 1943 Shukla had developed several positions that were at odds with the
BLPI, notably his "critical support" to the Congress in the 1945-46 elections and
his support for self-determination for India's Muslims. See Bolshevik Leninist,
April, 1946. Hull: Brynmor Jones Library.
24
2S
199
expelled the pro-BLPI majority. 26 As a result the BLPI gained a dozen

or so capable cadres and gutted the larger rival. 27
Anant Mandekar, the dynamic Bombay organizer of the BMP, helped
put the BLPI on the political map in Bombay. In March, 1947 he played
a prominent role in leading a two-day strike of 7,000 workers at the
Kaiser-i-Hind Mills Spinning and Weaving Company, where he worked
as a clerk. He was elected president of the Mill Committee. 28 When the
management transferred him out of the mill, 6,000 laborers started what
the government called a "major strike." 29 On April 21, 1947 Mandekar
was arrested and jailed for six months, a setback to the union and the BLPI. 30
Tulsi Boda turned out to be another real asset. An energetic organizer,
he developed a base in the India Woolen Mills and the Usha Woolen
Mills. He fonned the Bombay Woolen Mill Kamgar Union. 31 Boda also
organized a strike on the docks, for which he was arrested and jailed for
six months. Shanta Patel, another former BMP leader, produced a Marathilanguage newspaper, Purogami Kamgar [Radical Worker], which
helped the BLPI to recruit rank-and-file workers, like Lakshman Jadhav
and Prabhakar More, who were members of the Girni Kamgar Union,
the CPI stronghold. Jadhav was the model communist worker, working
all day in the mill and then doing party work until late into the night. 32
26
27
28
29
The BMP conference met at Palitana (Gujarat) in January, 1947. "For the
Information of All Units," bulletin issued by the Bureau, Central Committee ofthe
BLPI, 12 March 1947.
The Bhauvnagar unit of the BMP took a "neutral" position between Shukla and the
BLPI, and the Nagpur branch disintegrated.
IOL: LlPJ/5/168. File Po!. 6555/1947.
IOL: LlPJ/5/168. File Po!. 7885/1947. Also New Spark, 26 April 1947, 10 May
1947,24 May 1947,7 June 1947,5 July 1947, and 16 August 1947.
30
New Spark, 8 November 1947 and New Spark, 6 December 1947.; and "Report by
JF on the Activities ofthe Bolshevik Leninist Party ofIndia During 1947."
31
New Spark, 8 November 1947.
32
Ramesh Karkal, the Bombay organizer, recalled how Jadhar's mother worried: "How
many of us had noticed how, with a dimly burning kerosene lamp beside her, she
lay awake in her little room till her son's return from party work in the late hours of
the night. .. she served the cold dinner to her son. Only then would she herself sit to
still her own hunger." Socialist Appeal [New Delhi], vo!. 2, no. 17, late September
1953.
200
Bengal
In contrast to Bombay the Calcutta BLPI group was solidly

"indigenous." The Ceylonese comrades who had decamped in Calcutta
during the war had either returned home or moved to Bombay. The
notable exception was Selina Perera. Kamalesh Bannerji, released from
jail in 1945, returned to the helm once again. He tapped the talents of
cadres like P.K. Roy, Dulal Bose, and Hiranand Mishra. According to a
visiting British Trotskyist, "the Calcutta comrades have attained an
extremely high level of seriousnesss, enthusiasm, political ability, and
organisational compactness." 33
While the Bombay group was getting on its feet again, the Calcutta
branch functioned as the propaganda center' of the party. It published
several of Trotsky's books, including Permanent Revolution and
Stalinism and Bolshevism, through Gupta Rahman & Gupta in Calcutta.
The Calcutta group also published Bengali translations of Permanent
Revolution, Open Letter to the Workers of India, Stalinism and
Bolshevism, and the introduction to Harold Isaac's Tragedy of the
Chinese Revolution. The Trotskyists published a twice-monthly local
newspaper, Inquilab [Revolution].
The Calcutta branch had several very capable organizers. One was
Z.H. Khan. He started organizing the firefighters in 1945. Before he
could form a union, the police provoked a strike in May, 1946. The
Calcutta branch suddenly had to lead a mass labor action. At one point,
after the police attacked the firefighters in their barracks, the
Trotskyists led a disciplined procession of two thousand strikers
through the city. Young recruits, like Jagadish Jha and Umar Abid
Zuberi, who later became mass leaders, got their first experience
during this strike. After eleven days the strikers won a "substantial
victory." 34 The BLPI formed the Damkal Mazdur Union.
II
"Report by JF on the Activities of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India During

1947."
l4
D.G. [Douglas. Garbuttl, "Report on the Fourth International Movement in India,"

p. 9; and Spark. no, 6 (Early May, 1946), p. 6.
201
Another rising star was Haradhan Chatterji, who worked at

Messrs. Cox & Kings Ltd. He was a gifted agitator. In 1946 he
organized the white-collar clerks and led a 80-day strike, the first fully
successful strike in the history of the Federation of Mercantile
Employees Unions. 35 Chatterji and Biman Sur Roy were elected vice
president and secretary, respectively, of the Cox & Kings Employees
Union. When the company threatened mass layoffs in 1947, Chatterji
demanded that the company show its records to the union ("open the
books!"). 36 When the company fired 118 workers, the union went on
strike. The police used tear gas to attack the 500 strikers and their
supporters on the picket lines. 37 The Stalinists refused to come to the
aid of this strike. 38 The strike lasted four months, defeated in the end
by a lock-out and dismissals.
The Bengal unit extended its reach into the industrial" suburbs of
Calcutta. Dulal Bose and Amal Bagchi built fractions in the jute and
paper mill unions in Titaghur and Kankimara. 39 With the Stalinists
discredited the Trotskyists captured the powerful Titaghur Paper Mills
Employees Union. In March, 1947 the Trotskyists led 8,000 workers in
a strike that lasted for 72 days. 40 The Bengal government called this
one of the two "most important" strikes in Bengal during that period. 41
Amal Bagchi became general secretary of the Bengal Paper Mill
Mazdoor Union. Once, in 1947, when the party organized an open-air
meeting in Titagarh, over 4,000 workers attended. 42 Later the BLPI
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
New Spark, 13 September 1947. The Chief Secretary of the Bengal government,
H.S.E. Stevens, made note of this strike in his periodic secret report to the Home
Department in New Delhi. IOL: LlPJ/5/153. File Pol. 12444/1946.
New Spark, 27 September 1947. In early March the government reported that the
Mercantile Employees Union was threatening to strike. IOL: LIPJ/5/154. File Pol.
7136/1947.
New Spark, 20 December 1947 and 6 March 1948.
New Spark, 14 February 1948.
New Spark, 16 August 1947.
New Spark, 26 April 1947.
IOL: LlPJ/5/154. File Pol. 7531/1947.
202
organized the Titaghur Jute Workers Union, in opposition to the

Congress Party union. 43
The BLPI sent Haradhan Chatterji and Z.H. Khan to work in the
industrial belt along the Bengal-Bihar border. In 1947 they organized
the workers at the Burn & Co. pottery works. Khan was elected the
union president. The Trotskyists also developed a base in the Bengal
Paper Mill Company Ltd in Raniganj. 44 Amal Bagchi led the Bengal
Paper Mill Mazdoor Union. Through the Paper Mill Workers
Federation the BLPI gained control over the mills at Hajinagar. Khan
and Dulal Bose carried out a 60-day strike of paper workers which
ended in "complete victory." 45 Khan was elected president of the Paper
Mill Workers' Union and became widely known as a trade union leader.
Haradhan Chatterji formed a number of unions in the Bengal and
Bihar minefields. With two full-timers in Raniganj the BLPI recruited
workers and developed a large periphery. In August, 1947 Chatterji
mobilized a mass campaign in Raniganj on the occasion of the fifth
anniversay of the Quit India movement. A few months later the BLPI
took out a procession of 2,000 workers behind banners of the Fourth
International. 46 The BLPI organized workers in three oil mills in
Raniganj. 47 The party recruited young militants, like Sailen Banerji in
Purulia, who became a life-long Trotskyist.
Discussions with Quasi-Trotskyists
In Bengal there were several organizations that claimed to oppose the

CPI from the left. The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), led by
the maverick Marxist, Saumyendranath Tagore, was widely regarded
43
New Spark, 4 September 1948.
44
New Spark, 13 September 1947 and 27 September 1947.
45
Quatri~me Internationale (September-October 1947), pp. 70-71.
46
47
New Spark, 1 May 1948.
203
as "Trotskyite." 48 While Tagore admired Trotsky, he was too

independent to accept Trotskyism as a doctrine or the Fourth
International as a higher leadership. While in jail in 1944 he formulated
his own quirky version of Permanent Revolution. 49 But there was a
Trotskyist tendency within his party. 50 And there was a history of
collaboration on the student front. 51
The BLPI approached Tagore after he was released from jail in
1946. There were two big differences. First, Tagore believed that the
revolution was imminent and therefore the revolutionaries had to form
S.N. Tagore was a bourgeois Bohemian turned communist. He had joined the
Communist movement in 1926 and the following year at his own expense went to
Moscow, where he witnessed the defeat of the Oppositions. After his return to
Calcutta, he formed the "Ganabani Group" in 1935. In 1938 his group became the
Communist League, which criticized the turn to the Popular front and attacked
"foul and pestilential Stalinism." S.N. Tagore, United Front or Betrayal (Calcutta,
1938), p. 16. However, he did not break decisively with the Comintern until the
turn to the Peoples' War line. In 1943 he re-named his group the Revolutionary
Conununist Party (RCP). Arrested during the Quit India upsurge, he landed in jail
with the BLPI leader, Kamalesh Bannerj. Perhaps as a result of their discussions,
Tagore moved close to the BLPI on the nature of Congress and the character of
the Indian revolution. S.N. Tagore, Revolution and Quit India (Calcutta, 1946),
pp. 11-12.
49
Tagore claimed that "Lenin was just as much a champion of the permanent
revolution as Trotsky was and with a much more sure grasp of the revolutionary
reality." S.N. Tagore, Permanent Revolution (Calcutta, 1944), pp. 43-44. In
response Leslie Goonewardene showed how Lenin and Trotsky had critical
differences on the question ofthe Russian revolution prior to 1917. K. Tilak [Leslie
Goonewardene], "Saumyendra Nath Tagore and Permanent Revolution,"
Permanent Revolution, vo\. 3, no. 1 (January-March 1945), pp. 1-17. The TagoreTilak exchange was a war of quotations. Neither attempted to show how their
theory fit India's reality.
so Sudarshan Chatterji was the leader of this pro-Trotsky tendency. During the
war he had spent time in jail with Murray Gow Purdy. After his release he
continued discussions with BLPI members. Interview with Sudarshan Chatterji, 3
February 1974.
48
SI
Letter from C.R. Govindan [Colvin de Silva] to Secretary, International Secretariat,

18 July 1945. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
204
Soviets [Panchayets] immediately. 52 The BLPI thought he was

indulging adventurist fantasies. 53 Second, the RCP took a fuzzy line on
the USSR, reflecting the different views within the party. Some agreed
with the Trotskyist position (the USSR as a "degenerated workers
state"), while others paraphrased the "new class" theories propounded
by Max Shachtman in the US and M.R. Masani in India. 54 The BLPI
and Tagore dueled on the question in their newspapers. 55
The unity negotiations ended in an impasse. 56 Subsequently, a
section of the RCP, led by the former terrorist, Pannalal Das Gupta,
launched an ill-starred "insurrection." His comrades attacked police
stations, the Jessop & Co. engineering works, and Calcutta's Dum Dum
airport, and attempted to rouse a peasant uprising in Basirhat. 57 The
putsch was crushed. In the aftermath the RCP split. One section went
over to the CPI, while Tagore eventually took a Shachtmanite ("Third
Camp") position. 58
52
Saumyendranath Tagore, "Political Fatalism," Toilers Front, 26 May 1947; and S.

Tagore, "Panchayet and Revolution," Toilers Front, 14 April 1947.
53
"Opportunism on the Question of Revolution and Soviets," Spark, no. 2 (Early

March 1946); K. Tilak [Leslie Goonewardene], "Saumyendranath Tagore and
Soviets," New Spark, 10 May 1947; Sudarshan Chatterji, "Revolutionary Situation
and Panchayets: A Reply to Tilak," Toilers Front, 16 June 1947.
54
For the pro-Trotskyist line, see Sudarshan Chatterji, "U.S.S.R. and Ourselves,"
Toilers' Front, 22 September 1947; S.M. Jaffar, An Outline of Leftism in India
(1944) describes the USSR as (a) ruled by a "parasitic caste," (b) "dominated by a
class of bureaucrats and parasites," and (c) "gripped in the clutches of
Bonapartism. "
55
"Marxism on the USSR-What We Attack and What We Defend," Spark, no. 4

(Early April, 1946).
56
"Record of Unity Discussions Between Delegations of the RCPI and BLPI - JuneJuly 1948," Internal Bulletin, vo!. 3 (August 1948), pp. 5-7; and "Report of
Committee on RCP Negotiations," Internal Bulletin, vo!. 3 (August 1948), pp. 1-2.
57
Communist Violence in India. Issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government

of India, 1949.
.
58
"Stalinist expansionism is as great a menace as the imperialist expansionism of the

U.S.A. and Great Britain." Saumyendranath Tagore, Revolutionary CommunismThe World and India (1951); also Stalin, Truman, Hands Off Korea (1951).
205
Madura
In South India the BLPI faced a situation that was almost the opposite
of Bombay. In Madura and Madras the Ceylonese transplants who
could speak Tamil were not such "outsiders." Despite the police raids
during the war, the Trotskyists managed to build an effective
underground organization. The BLPI groups in Madura and Madras
developed cells in key factories. The Congress Socialists had no
significant base whatsoever in Madras province. And so when CPI lost
its favored position after the war, the Trotskyists had a clear shot at
leadership.
In Madura the BLPI branch was led by K. Appanraj. The
Trotskyists developed a workers' group in the Harvey Mills. 59 One of
the Ceylon Tamils, B.M.K. Ramaswamy, organized workers in the
Meenakshi Mills and the Mahalakshmi Mills. In 1946, when the BLPI
called a meeting, several thousand textile workers showed up "to hear
what the Trotskyists were saying." 60 The BLPI led several strikes, one
lasting 45 days. The Trotskyists recruited workers directly from the
shop floor.
The BLPI branch in Madura quickly became recognized as a rival
to the CPI. In March, 1947 the party announced a public rally in the
name of the Fourth International. The featured speaker was Ajit Roy,
who was on national tour after his return from the UK. The CPI called
a counter-rally for the same time, only 100 yards away. The BLPI rally
started with 5,000 but swelled to 15,000. The CPI sent thugs to break
up the meeting. The BLPI was prepared to defend their rally. According
the BLPI's newspaper, "the Stalinist hooligans were easily driven off." 61
The Madura party also developed a group in Tuticorin. A party
member, Elayaperumal, was secretary of the Tuticorin Mill Workers
59
A. & F. Harvey Ltd. were the managing agents for the Madura Mills Company. The
mills were popularly called "Harveys."
60
D[ouglas] G[arbutt], "Report on the Fourth International Movement in India."
61
New Spark, 20 December 1947.
206
Union. The BLPI group in the union played a leading role in a strike.
The BLPI formed several other unions in Tuticorin in 1946-47.
The Madura party got a peasant base in Sholavandan. Their
Congress sympathizer, T.G. Krishnamurthy, had organized a peasants
union in Sholavandan which was agitating for a greater share in the
harvest. Irritated, the Congress Ministry had Krishnamurthy and his
comrades arrested. The BLPI sent organizers to Sholavandan to take
over the agitation. The government eventually had to back down. The
BLPI recruited peasants from Sholavandan to act as defence guards for
its union meetings in Madura. "In the dark night, when I addressed the
meetings" remembers K. Appanraj, "the swords that were brought by
peasants would glitter under the lamps of the mill gate. "62
62
Letter from K. Appanraj toauthor, 16 February 2006.
207
CHAPTER NINE
The Breakthrough
The BLPI had its greatest success in Madras. In 1946 S:C.C. Anthony
Pillai, the Ceylonese Tamil, was elected president of the Madras
Labour Union (MLU), the oldest union in India, with nearly 14,000
workers. That was an enormous coup. But on top of that he was elected
president of the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway Workers
Union. Pillai led two huge strikes at the Buckingham and Carnactic
Mills, one of the largest factories in British India. Even the CPI had to
admit that the Trotskyists "stole" the initiative. I How did that happen?
During the war the CPI tried to capture the MLU. 2 The BLPI
cadres working in the mills opposed the no-strike policy of the CPI.
The struggle became so violent that the government banned meetings
in the mills after dark. 3 The CPI eventually retreated. In 1946 the
Trotskyists proposed that Anthony Pillai succeed T.V. Kalyanasundara
Mudaliar (popularly known as "Tiru Vi. Ka.") as MLU president. Pillai
had just been released from two years in prison for his political
activities in Madras. The MLU executive committee respected Pillai
and his comrades. 4 On June 6, 1946 he was elected president. In that
capacity he could name his own union officials.
Pillai faced his first challenge the very next day. A fight broke out
between some workers and company security guards at the B&C Mills.
On June 8 the workers called a strike on the spot to force the company
The CPI boss, S.A. Dange, admitted that "Trotskyites and other elements stole the
leadership as in the case of the Madras Binny strike." S.A. Dange, On the Trade
Union Movement: Reports to a Convention o/Communist Party Members working
in the Trade Union Movement (Calcutta, 1952). New York: Tamiment Library, New
York University.
IOL: LlPJ/5/207. Files Pal. 4879/1944, Pal. 4995/1944, and Pal. 6093/1944.
IOL: LlPJ/5/207. File Pal. 7899/1944.
E.A. Ramaswamy, Worker Consciousness and Trade Union Response (Delhi,
1988), p. 117.
208
to remove the guards. 5 The law required unions to serve notice of

strikes in advance. But there was an even bigger problem. The clash
had a communal overtone; the guards were Punjabi Muslims and the
workers were Tamil Hindus. The dispute threatened to .turn against the
Tamil Muslim workers in the mills.
Pillai backed the workers, defying the government rules. 6 The
MLU called its first official strike since 1926. Most of the clerical staff
joined the strike. Mill workers by the thousands flocked to union
meetings. The BLPI branch threw all its resources, such as they were,
into supporting the strike. The party had a strong fraction working in
the MLU. G Balaram was an important strike leader and functioned as
Pillai's right-hand man. On the outside the open party group was led by
G Palani Velayutham, the Madras organizer.
The mill management called in the police to break up union
demonstrations. When that failed, the company closed the companyrun food distribution center, which had been created during the war to
dispense rationed commodities. Workers could only use their ration
cards inside the mills. Pillai protested to the Madras prime minister.
The government relented and allowed the workers to use their ration
cards at any distribution center in the city.
The BLPI organized solidarity meetings, including a women's
rally in support of the strike. A British Trotskyist in uniform, who was
visiting Madras at the time, commented, "Our comrades led the
demonstrations from the Mill on all these occasions. On the woman's
demo the greatest difficulty was experienced in holding the women
back when they were stopped by the police. When lathi attacks were
attempted, the women routed the police twice." 7
The strike lasted 48 days. The union won its key demands: the
transfer of the security guards and an end to company control over the
employee's welfare association. "Under Anthony Pillai and a vigorous
5
Madras Mail, 11 June 1946.
Spark, no. 9 (Mid-July 1946).

D.G [Douglas Garbutt], "Report on the Trotskyist Movement in India," p. 11.
209
union executive," writes a labor historian, "the membership of the

union reached new heights and the union became much more militant
and assertive. The union's committees within the mills became more
effective, whilst area committees were set up to recruit for the union in
the Hindu, Muslim and Untouchable areas." 8
As a result of the strike, mill workers joined the union in the
thousands. Pillai seized the opportunity to make the union leadership
more representative. Prior to the strike the MLU executive consisted of
11 representatives from the Buckingham Mill, 11 from the Carnatic
Mill,' and 11 outsiders. Pillai proposed expanding the committee to one
executive committee member for every hundred rank-and-file workers.
That would greatly increase the influence of the rank-and-file militants.
Pillai carried the day. The MLU executive was expanded from 33 to 148.
The MLU strike helped the Trotskyists to strengthen their position
in the Madras and Southern Mahratta (MSM) Railway Workers Union.
During the war the BLPI had built a base in the MSM workshops in
Perambur, not far from the B&C Mills. With some 8,000 workers, that
was the largest single branch of the union. The Perambur workers
nominated two Trotskyists, T.O Krishnamurty and Mahadev Rao, for
the positions of president and secretary. At the national level the
Stalinists, in alliance with independent union bosses, maintained
bureaucratic control. In 1946 the dissidents challenged the leadership
at the union's annual conference. 9 The workers raised the call for
Anthony Pillai to run for president of the Perambur union branch. 10 In
a hotly contested election Anthony Pillai was elected president.
The Stress of Success
The Madras branch was mainly working-class in composition. It had

only a few educated, middle-class cadres, such as G. Selvaraj at
Presidency College and Madhava Rao at Stanley Medical College,
8
10
Eamon Murphy, Unions in Conflict: A Comparative Study of Four South Indian

Textile Centres, 1918-1939 (New Delhi, 1981), p. 167.
Spark, no. 2 (Early March 1946).
Spark, no. 2 (Early March 1946).
who could conduct study classes, write leaflets, contact sympathizers,

and carry out open party work. Given that situation, Pillai wanted to
shield the party as much as possible. "In Madras," he explained, "a
weak party organisation was almost overnight faced with a broad tradeunion base. To preserve even the few cadres the party had, it was
necessary for the Madras Unit to emerge gradually." 11
The BLPI needed a respite to consolidate its gains, recruit more
youth, train the cadres, open a party office, and launch a Tamillanguage newspaper. That was not in the cards. In early 1947 the situation
in the B&C Mills heated up again. In February the MLU presented 21
demands, including increases in wages and bonus payments. The
Madras Congress government sent the dispute to compulsory arbitration.
Pillai refused to recognize Court of Enquiry and served notice to strike.
The MLU started collecting strike funds, organized a network of
neighborhood committees, and recruited 1,000 volunteers to form a
workers defense guard. The young Trotskyist, S. Amarnath, became
captain of the guard. 12 Anticipating that Pillai would be arrested once
the strike began, the union formed a secret organizing committee,
which included Caroline Anthony Pillai and Manickam [Bodi M. Muthiah].
Strike!
The government feared that the Trotskyists had "plans to foment a

general strike throughout the province." 13 Before dawn on March 10
the police arrested Pillai and whisked him off to Vellore Jail. The
Madras Congress Ministry used the old Maintenance of Public Order
Act to jail a number of other union officials and militants. As the news
spread, workers flocked to the MLU's headquarters. 14 Tiru V. Ka., the
11
"Report of First Party Convention Held May 21-24,1947," p. 1.
12
Interview with S. Amamath, 14 June 1974.
13
IOL: LlPJ/5/21O. Po!. 7296/1947.
14
K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan: Thoyizh Sangha Medai S.C.C. Antoni Pillai Vazhkai
Varalaru [The Fearless One: Biography of the Intellectual Labour Leader, S.C.C.
Anthony Pillai] (Chennai, 1995), p. 52.
211
acting president, tried to pacify the crowd and called for a mass meeting
that evening. At that meeting Caroline Anthony PilIai delivered a rousing
speech. The meeting adopted a resolution that backed the union's
demands and called for the immediate release of the MLU leaders.
The next day the MLU called the strike. Not a single worker
entered the B&C Mills. The Trotskyists were the backbone of the strike
committees. The active militants included G. Balaram, C.K.
Narayanana, Krishnaiah, Venugopal, Parthasarathy, and R.N.
Selvaraj. 15 The Trotskyists issued a strike bulletin every day. 16 The
government moved Pillai from Vellore to Rajahmundry Jail, far away
in Andhra, where he was placed in solitary confinement. 17
Two days after the strike began the union led a procession of
strikers through the streets of Madras to the residence of the Minister
for Industries and Labour. 18 The Premier of Madras'demanded that the
strike be called off. In response the uni'on called a mass rally for March
28. Strikers, their families, and supporters from all walks of life in
Madras-a huge throng of 40,000-converged on the rally. Caroline
Anthony Pillai declared from the podium that no negotiations would be
held until Anthony Pillai and other union leaders were released. 19 The
strike committee called for a one-day hartal in Madras in support of
the str~ke.
On March 31 more than 100,000 observed hartal. 20 The entire
Perambur railway workshop downed tools. The trams didn't run, and
only a few buses were on the road. 21 The municipal workers, staff from
15
K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan: Thoyizh Sangha Medai S.C.C. Antoni Pillai Vazhkai
Varalaru, p. 64.
16
New Spark, 5 July 1947.
17
IOL: LlPJ/5/21O. Po!. 7296/1947.
18
IOL: LlPJ/5/21O. Po!. 7728/1947.
19
Manickam [Bodi M. Muthiah], "100,000 Madras Workers Protest Trotskyist Union

Leader's Arrest," 2-page typed document, n.d. [April 1947], p. 2. Hoover: SWP
Papers, box 38.
20
Quatrieme Internationale (May-June 1947), pp. 75-76.
21
IOL: LIPJ/5121O. File Po!. 7684/1947.
212
the Civil Supplies department, leather workers, and cigar factory

workers also joined. The government staged a show of armed force.
"Armed police at every ten yards in the streets. Gurkha troops armed to
the teeth, at every street corner. Motor-cycles fitted with machine-guns
rushing through streets emptied of traffic by a virtually complete
transport strike." 22 According to alocal newspaper, "Beside stationing
mobile Units at all main police stations, patrol parties were sent on foot
and lorries to almost every important road. Armed pickets were posted
at all strategic points and in front of banks, courts, electric sub-stations,
pumping stations and similar places." 23
The CPI supported the strike. 24 But the Stalinists treated it as a
labor dispute only. The BLPI , on the other. hand, stressed that the strike
"is tending to make complete the political exposure of Congress, the
political party of the Indian bourgeoisie who are at this very moment
engaged in a political horse-deal with British Imperialism-behind the
backs and over the heads of the masses." 25
The strike had become a slow, grinding test of endurance. One
government report lamented that ~'the workers seem to be in no mood
for a compromise, although the strike has already lasted about six
weeks." 26 The strike committee held one rally after another to keep up
spirits and demand the release ofPillai. The BLPI militants in the MSM
led a procession of 7,000 workers from the Perambur workshops
through Madras. The police used batons and tear gas to disperse
"rioting" crowds in the mill districts. 27 On April 9 police attacked
women and children who were demonstrating at the Congress Prime
Minister's house.
22
Manickam, "100,000 Madras Workers Protest Trotskyist Union Leader's Arrest,"

p.2.
23
The Hindu, quoted in New Spark. 26 April 1947.
24
IOL: LlPJIl2/432. File Pol. 52211947.
25
Manickam [Bodi M. Muthiah], "100,000 Madras Workers Protest Trotskyist Union

Leader's Arrest," p. 2.
26
IOL: LlPJ/5/210. File Pol. 783111947.
27
E. Murphy, Unions in Conflict, p. 167.
213
On April 14 an estimated 50,000 people attended an outdoor rally

in support of the union. The BLPI leader, Colvin de Slva, who had
come up from Ceylon to help, addressed the crowd. The Congress
Ministry banned all gatherings. On April 16 the police arrested several
Trotskyist leaders, including Bodi M. Muthiah and Colvin de Silva,
who was deported to Ceylon for being a "close associate" of Anthony
Pillai. 28 In protest workers started wearing posters around their necks
courting arrest as close associates of Pillai. 29
The union led 3,000 strikers in a march on April 20 in defiance of
the ban on gatherings. 30 The police attacked with lathis and injured
200. The strikers broke up into groups, comandeered buses and trams,
and went around the city shouting slogans in support of the strike. The
police arrested 65 more union militants. The strike leaders resorted to
ingenious tactics. Two days later, according to another government
situation report, "about 500 workers infiltrated into the premises of the
Central Station and marched out in a procession shouting slogans. A
traffic jam resulted in front of the Station and the processionists were
dispersed by a mild lathi charge." 31
The strike, now in its third month, had escalated into a national crisis.
Archibald Nye, the governor of Madras, wrote to Viceroy Mountbatten
that "our cloth position is serious, almost desperate." 32 The Prime
Minister called upon the strikers to resume work immediately. The
government allowed the acting union president, Tiru.V. Ka, to visit
Anthony Pillai in jail "to explore the possibility of a settlement." But
the meeting was "quite disappointing." 33 The union insisted that its key
demands had to be met before the strike would be ended.
28
29

K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan: Thoyizh Sangha Medai
Varalaru. p. 52.
30
31
IOL: LlPJ/5/21O. File Po!. 8057/1947.
32
IOL: LIPJ/5/210. File Po!. 8396/1947.
J3
IOL: LlPJ/5/210. File Po!. 8057/1947.
214
s.e.e.
Antoni Pillai Vazhkai
International Solidarity
The BLPI appealed to its comrades abroad to mobilize support for the
strike. The American SWP cabled protests to Nehru and the Madras
Congress Premier. The Militant publicized the strike. 34 Other sections
of the FI also sent letters of protest to the Madras government. 35 These
protests seemed to have had an effect. On May 11 the police fetched
Pillai from jail, escourted him to Danushkodi, put him on the boat to
Ceylon, and at mid-point served a formal order of externment,
prohibiting his return to India. In Colombo Pillai got a doctor to give
him a medical certificate stating that he had a heart condition. Armed
with this ruse, he boarded a flight to Bombay, ostensibly to see a
doctor. In fact, he was headed to the BLPI national conference, which
was about to convene on May 21.
In those days there were no direct flights from Colombo to
Bombay; you had to go to Madras first. Arriving in the Madras airport,
Pillai was recognized and detained for questioning. He produced his
medical certificate. The detectives, not quite sure what to do, decided
to let Pillai proceed to Bombay. But his flight had already departed.
The authorities radioed the plane and had it circle back to Madras to
take away the troublesome Trotskyist.
At the party conference in Bombay the BLPI debated what to do
about the strike in Madras, now in its third month. The ranks were
exhausted. The executive committee was divided; one. of the vice
presidents, a Congressman, called for an end to the strike. The MLU
executive committee agreed to accept arbitration, if the externment
order on Pillai were lifted. Given the unfavorable situation, the BLPI
decided that Pillai should return to Madras without delay and seek a
negotiated end to the strike.
Travelling in disguise, in third-class train coaches, Pillai made the
long train journey to Madras. Arriving at Villivakkam at dawn on May
34
Militant,3 May 1947. The SWP also issued a press release signed by a number of
prominent literary figures, including the novelist, James T. Farre!'
35
215
31, he went to the first house he found that was flying the red union
flag. He sent word to his wife and Tiro Vi. Ka. to call a mass meeting
that evening at Ayanpuram, on the outskirts of Madras. N0 one else
knew that he had returned.
That evening, after the meeting got underway, Pillai came riding
up on a bicycle. He mounted the stage. The crowd went wild. It took
more than a half hour to restore quiet. Pillai began to speak, saying he
was going to negotiate with the Minister of Labour. "Before Comrade
Anthony Pillai could finish his speech," wrote one young Trotskyist
eyewitness, "the Deputy Commissioner of Police with a posse of over
200 constables and inspectors swooped down on the meeting and
arrested Comrade Anthony Pillai. A free fight ensued. The police lathicharged and later opened fire. The workers hurled stones, the only
available weapons. Thirty constables were injured and several workers
were arrested on charges of rioting and unlawful assembly." 36
Pillai was hauled off to Vellore jail again. After a legal tussle, he
was released on bail but immediately re-arrested. under the Public
Safety Ordinance. Other union militants were also jailed. Workers
demonstrated in several parts of the city. 37 On June 9 the government
illegalized the MLU, seized its funds, locked its headquarters, and
arrested 49 "men of the Fourth International." 38 Night after night a
virtual army-l0,000 Malabar Special Police-terrorized the mill
districts. In one night raid more than a th9usand strikers were arrested.
The government announced that the B&C Mills would reopen on
June 12. But on that day only six out of the 14,000 workers showed
up. 39 The next day only two reported for work. The governor of
Madras, in a confidential memorandum to Mountbatten, complained
36
V. Karalasingham, "Indian Bourgeoisie Bares Its Teeth: Repressive Measures

Against Trotskyist Controlled Union," 2-page report sent to SWP [USA], n.d. [June
1947], p. I. Hoover: SWP Papers, box 38.
37
IOL: LlPJ/SI210. File Pol. 8713/1947.
38
Quoted in New Spark. 19 July 1947.
39
National Standard, 13 June 1947.
216
that "the strength of the unions in Madras is very great and the
workmen implicitly obey the instructions of the leaders quite
irrespective of the merits of the case." 40
The MLU ended the strike on June 19, 1947, after more than 100
days. Even then nearly three thousand workers stayed away in protest.
Two small home-made bombs exploded in the spinning department of
the mills on opening day. 41 The government illegalized the Volunteer
Corps as a "communist organization" and arrested 13 volunteers. But
the MLU wasn't broken. The union went to court and forced the
employers to build 200 houses for workers and reinstate the 52 workers
who had been dismissed during the Quit India movement. Most of the
jailed union militants were released two months later when India
became independent. Pillai was sentenced to one year in prison. A
prominent lawyer, Muthaiah Mudhaliar, appealed and won.
The BLPI emerged from the battle with tremendous prestige. Pillai
was a hero. The BLPI called several public meetings in Madras in its
own name. These rallies attracted thousands. 42 The BLPI launched a
Tamil-language newspaper, Poratam [Spark]. In 1948 Pillai
campaigned for the Madras Municipal Council as a Trotskyist. He got
more than 5,000 of the 7,000 votes cast. 43 He had become a trade union
leader with national stature. In 1947 he was elected to the General
Council of the All-India Trade Union Congress.
The MLU strike was a landmark labor struggle. "Though the union
eventually had to surrender," writes one historian, "the workers of all
communities remained loyal to their leaders. The defeat and attempts
by the Congress government to suppress the union only strengthened
the unity. Eventually Binnys accepted the inevitable and granted the
union full recognition." 44 Tha.t epic struggle in 1947 was the high water
mark of the Trotskyist movement in India.
40
41
42
43
44
IOL: LlPJ/S/210. File Po!. 871411947.

IOL: LlPJ/S/210. File Po!. 899011947.
New Spark, 6 December 1947.

Socialist Appeal, November 1948.
E. Murphy, Unions in Conflict. p. 168.
217
CHAPTER TEN
Independence
Like most of the Indian left, the BLPI believed that the British would
never voluntarily relinquish power in India. Trotsky himself was
certain: "Only a victorious revolution can liberate India." I The theory
of Permanent Revolution held that only the "proletariat in power"
could carry out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution, including
independence. And since there was no revolution in sight, the British
would surely remain the ruling power for the foreseeable future.
With this perspective, the BLPI could only view the political
drama unfolding in India as a huge charade deliberately orchestrated to
fool the masses. The BLPI ridiculed the Interim Government as a farce
played out to hide "the real imperialist designs and intentions of our
rulers." 2 The BLPI dismissed the Constituent Assembly as "hopelessly
unreal." 3
Just a few months later Prime Minister Attlee delivered his famous
speech in the House of Commons declaring that Britain would leave
India no later than June 1948. He sacked Wavell and gave Lord
Mountbatten the mandate to transfer power to responsible Indian
Leon Trotsky, "The Betrayers ofIndia," in Writings ofLeon Trotsky 1938-39 (New
York, 1974), p. 199. Trotsky counterposed the need for revolution to the reformist
perspective of the Stalinist Popular Front. "India can only be liberated by the joint
and open revolutionary struggle of the workers, peasants, and the English
proletariat." Leon Trotsky, "Ignorance is not a Revolutionary Instrument," in
Writings of Leon Trotsky 1938-39, pp. 185-86.
Spark, no. 8 (Late June 1946), p. 5. The BLPI was not the only Trotskyist party in
the world to misread the unpredictable reality of those times. The American
Socialist Workers Party went one better. Trotsky had predicted that the war would
lead to the collapse of the Stalin regime. Since Stalin was stilI in the Kremlin, the
American Trotskyists insisted-as late as November 1945-that "the war is not
over." Militant, 17 November 1945.
218
parties and insure the unity of the Indian Union. Mountbatten soon
discovered that he had less time than anyone thought. The communal
violence was spreading rapidly and had infected the police, army, and
civil service. He formulated "Plan Balkan," which evolved into "Plan
.
Partition."
Faced with these unexpected events, the BLPI summoned a party
conference for May, 1947. The leadership prepared political and
organizational resolutions for pre-conference discussion. The hot issues
were the Constituent Assembly demand, the question of Muslim selfdetermination, and the meaning of the impending transfer of power.
Debate Over Constituent Assembly
In 1938 Jawaharlal Nehru had got the British Labour leaders to promise
that when Labour came to power, they would summon a Constituent
Assembly, freely elected on the basis of universal adult franchise, to
frame a constitution for a free India, subject only to an Indo-British treaty
safeguarding British interests for a transitional period. 4 But that is not
what the Cabinet Mission proposed. Their Constituent Assembly would
neither be elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage nor would it
have sovereign power. Nehru denounced their proposal as a fraud.
The BLPI agreed with Nehru. The party had been lukewarm to the
Consituent Assembly slogan from the start. In its 1942 program the
BLPI characterized the slogan as "illusive and deceptive." The party
would only give "critical support to the slogan, not as one capable of
objective fulfilment even for a successful revolution, but as a rallying
cry in the specific stage of the struggle." Meeting in June, 1946 the
BLPI Central Committee decided not to even demand a "genuine"
Constituent Assembly as an answer to the fraud. 5
Partha Sarathi Gupta, Imperialism and the British Labour Movement, 1914-1964
(London, 1975), pp. 257-59.
The rationale was that "the Congress itself was not claiming the so-called
Constituent Assembly to be a real Constituent Assembly." "C.C. Report Presented
to Party Convention Beginning May 21, 1947," p. 12.
219
That position represented a deviation from what Trotsky had

written on this question. In 1930 he criticized the Comintern for failing
to demand a Constitutent Assembly for India. He regarded the
Constituent Assembly as "the natural and inevitable generalized
expression of the- democratic tasks of the revolution." 6 The
Transitional Program, which Trotsky wrote for the Fourth
International, made the Constituent Assembly a key demand for the
colonial countries. 7
When the Muslim League decided to boycott the Constituent
Assembly, Nehru changed his mind. The Congress participated in the
opening session, where the delegates solemnly proclaimed their resolve
"to proclaim India as an indepepdent and sovereign republic" and then
went home. Unlike the CPI, which hailed the Constituent Assembly,
the BLPI denounced it as a "fake," a "combination of the degenerate
princely order and Indian capitalism sitting under the aegis of their very
masters." 8
However, since a lot of people saw the Constituent Assembly as a
big step forward, the BLPI could no longer ignore the issue. "As
against this fake constituent assembly we demand the convening of a
revolutionary constituent assembly elected on universal adult franchise
with a secret ballot. To convene such a constituent assembly it is
essential first to drive the British armed forces out of India and to
smash its rotten and corrupt administrative and police machinery." 9 At
the same time the BLPI emphasized that renewed mass struggles "may
bypass the convening of a proper constituent assembly." 10 The BLPI
had the Russian experience in mind. In October, 1917 the Bolsheviks
led the Soviets to disperse the Constituent Assembly at gunpoint.
Leon Trotsky, "The Revolution In India, Its Tasks and Dangers," p. 250.
Leon Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth
International (New York, 1970), p. 31.
New Spark, 26 Apri11947.

10
The BLPI leadership, having pooh-poohed the idea of a

Constituent Assembly, now bent the stick in the opposite direction. In
their draft resolution, circulated prior to the conference, the leadership
advanced this demand as the centerpiece of the party's program for the
coming period. That provoked opposition. Some of the leading
members in the Calcutta branch thought the new slogan was misguided.
In their view the Constituent Assembly "has been absolutely unreal to
the Indian people, 90% of whom are shoved aside, the representation
of the rest being indirect at that." 11 Therefore, the BLPI should just
"expose it in the way we had been doing in the past."
At the BLPI conference, which met in Bombay in May, there was
a prolonged debate over the question. Some delegates, including the
Calcutta critics, flatly rejected the Constituent Assembly demand on
principle. In their view the fight for a Constituent Assembly "cuts
across" the main objective of the party-the socialist revolution
leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat. 12 In the floor debate
Hector Abhayavardhana called this position "ultra-left." He cogently
pointed out that Trotsky, at various times in the 1930s, called ~or. a
Constituent Assembly in Italy, a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly
for Spain, a Republic for Belgium, and a Black Republic for South
Africa. 13
Others took a diametrically opposed position, namely, that the
Revolutionary Constituent Assembly should be "the main transitional
11
This group included P.K. Roy and Hiranand Mishra. Roby, Chester, and Bibhuty,
"A Criticism of the Draft Resolution as Submitted by the CC," Internal Bulletin (I
April 1947), pp.6~7. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
12
The main proponents of this position were P.K. Roy, Hiranand Mishra, and Doric
de Souza. "Report of the First Party Convention Held May 21-24, 1947," Internal
Bulletin, vo!. 2, no. 1 [May 1947], p. 5; Arun Bose, "Programme and Reality,"
Internal Bulletin, vo!. 2, no. 3 (25 September 1947), pp 13-16; P.K. Roy,
"Opportunism on the Question of the Constituent Assembly," Internal Bulletin, vo!.
2, no. 3 (25 September 1947), pp. 17-21. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
13
H.A. Vardhan [Hector Abhayavardhana], "Convention Discussion on the

Constituent Assembly: A Summing Up," Internal Bulletin, vo!. 2, no. 3 (September
25, 1947), p. 4-12. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
221
slogan today." 14 In their opinion the fight for a genuine Constituent

Assembly could show the masses that a revolution was necessary even
to realize this classic democratic demand (hence the "transitional"). IS
A third group, which included the incumbent leadership, took the
middle ground. They argued that the Constituent Assembly slogan
could be raised when "the situation demands the putting forward of this
slogan." 16 However, the proponents of this view didn't give specific
criteria for when the slogan would become appropriate. That smacked
of a circular argument.
In a close vote the delegates decided to make the Constituent
Assembly the main slogan of the party. "The slogan of Constituent
Assembly should be the central slogan of the Transitional Programme,
i.e. the slogan around which all other transitional slogans hinge; and in
the present period the propagation of this slogan will have to be in the
form of the Revolutionary Constitutent Assembly, thet:eby
counterposing it to the fake CA." 17
This was a vote against the incumbent leadership. Leslie
Goonewardene resigned as General Secretary. Hector Abhayavardhana
took his place. The conference elected a new Political Bureau
14
Hector Abhayavardhana, V.S.S. Sastry, Anthony PiIlai, V. Karalasingham, and Raj

Narayan Arya advocated this position. H.A. Vardhan [Hector Abhayavardhana),
"Convention Discussion on the Constituent Assembly: A Summing Up," Internal
Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 3 (September 25, 1947), p. 4-12. Hoover: LSH, box 52. See
also Raj Narain, "The Slogan of R.C.A. Why Should We Retain It?," Internal
Bulletin, vol. 3, no. 1 (1 March 1948), pp. 1-3. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
IS
The idea that democratic demands could become "transitional" had stirred
controversy elsewhere in the Fourth International. In the American Socialist
Workers Party a minority around Felix Morrow argued that properly chosen
democratic demands were in fact "transitional." Hector Abhayavardhana was aware
of this dispute within the American party. Hector Abhayavardhana, "Statement on
Points of Controversy Inside the Fourth International," Internal Bulletin, vol. 2,
no. 3 (25 September 1947), p. 2. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
16
The sponsors of that proposal included Leslie Goonewardene, Colvin de Silva, and
Indra Sen. "Report of the First Party Convention Held May 21-24, 1947," p. 5.
17
"Report of the First Party Convention Held May 21-24, 1947," p. 6.
222
consisting of three representatives who had advocated the change in

line on the Constitutent Asser,n.bly (Abhayavardhana, Sastry, and
Anthony Pillai). The Bengal minority demanded that a new convention
be summoned to reconsider the whole issue. 18
In its propaganda the BLPI called upon the Congress to live up to
its previous position: "Dissolve this comic circus that you want to palm
off as a Constituent Assembly. Summon a real Constituent Assembly,
freely elected, under no duress from the British forces in India, on a
universal adult franchise. Let the exploited masses of India send their
representatives to such a Constituent Assembly." 19 Confident that
Congress would never do this, the BLPI predicted that the masses
would see that "the Indian Capitalists and their party, the Indian
National Congress, are the tools and allies of World Capitalism." That
was expecting too much.
Pakistan Revisited
In the months leading up to the BLPI conference the communal

situation in India got worse and worse. Hindu-Muslim riots convulsed
Bombay, Calcutta, and Benares. In the NWFP and the Punjab the
pogroms left 3,500 dead in less than a month. One senior British
official said the devastated villages looked like the European towns that
had been hit by "fire bomb raids during the war." 20 In eastern Bengal
Muslim gangs pillaged property and massacred Hindus. Thousands of
Hindus fled to Bihar and V.P. In retaliation Hindu mobs slaughtered
more than 7,000 Muslims in Bihar alone.
The BLPI leadership didn't seem to fathom what was happening
in the country. The draft political resolution for the party conference
didn't even mention the communal rioting. Some of the comrades in
Calcutta sharply criticized the leadership for their "lack of any attitide
18
"Resolution of the Calcutta District Committee Unanimously Adopted on 29-9-47,"

Internal Bulletin, vo\. 3, no. 1 (1 March 1948), pp. 3-5. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
19
20
Alan CampbelI-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten (London, 1952), p. 79.
223
towards the communal riots that have been ravaging the countryside
(for the authors the communal riots as well as the Muslim League do
not exist at all!)." 21
At the conference the delegates adopted a resolution that finally
faced reality. "In the teeth of Congress opposition the Muslim League,
with hesitating support from the British, is today on the threshold of
securing the establishment of Pakistan in one form or another... This
slogan has undoubtedly harnessed behind it the aspirations of the
Muslims for separate state existence in Northern India." 22 The BLPI
characterized Pakistan as a "bitter pill."
Up to that point the majority of the BLPI denied that the Muslims
in India, taken as a whole, constituted a nation, according to the classic
Bolshevik definition. That was true. Like the Jews in Europe before the
war, the Muslims in India were a religious minority dispersed within
larger nations and nationalities. But, just as the Holocaust set the stage
for mass Jewish emmigration to Palestine, laying the basis for a Jewish
nation, so too the communal killing, dislocation, and population
transfers created the objective basis for the consolidation of Muslim
nations on the subcontinent.
Unlike the CPI, which cheered the Mountbatten Plan, the BLPI
refused to support Pakistan in any form. The BLPI pointed out that
Pakistan will require "the transfer of populations" and carving up "the
living bodies of the crystallising nationalities in India." In order to
create an eastern Pakistan the Bengali nation would have to be divided.
If Assam were grafted on, then the Hindu minority would be trapped
within the new state. That was a recipe for reversing the terms of
oppression. Whichever way Calcutta went, half the people would be
losers. Hence the BLPI concluded that "the religio-communal partition
of India is an unrelievedly regressive act." 23
21
Roby, Chester, and Bibhuty, "A Criticism of the Draft Resolution as Submitted by
the CC," p. 6.
22
"Political Resolution," adopted at the second conference of the BLPI, reprinted in

New Spark. 21 June 1947.
New Spark. 24 May 1947.
23
224
Independence: Real or Fake?
At the BLPI conference the Trotskyists wrestled with the question of

what the impending settlement would mean. There was a big spread of
opinion and a lot of confusion.
On one side were those who flatly denied that India would become
independent in any sense. P.K. Roy, a delegate from Calcutta,
characterized the Mountbatten plan as a big fraud, just another attempt
to preserve the Raj through political reforms. He denied that there
would be any "transfer of power." He argued that Britain intended to
"work a political alliance within the existing framework of direct rule."
Others took the position that Britain would switch from "direct
rule" to "indirect rule." But there were differences over what "indirect
rule" signified. Hector Abhayavardhana argued that, despite the
transfer of power, India "will remain a colony." 24 Doric de Souza
speculated that India would become a "semi-colony" of Britain, akin to
the "nominally independent" nations in Latin America dominated by
the US. 25
\
A third group thought that the transfer of power would be more or

less real. Leslie Goonewardene ventured that Britain might have to
"grant sovereignty to her colonies" in order to "salvage her empire."
Indra Sen spoke of a "transfer of a certain quantum of power." Anthony
Pillai opined that there would be "some degree of political
independence." Colvin de Silva took an agnostic position. He st~ted
that the "crux of the question" would be the terms set forth in the (uture
Indo-British treaty, the details of which had not been disclosed.
24
"Report of First Party Convention Held May 21-24, 1947," pp. 3-4.
25
During the war the BLPI had speculated that the US might try to turn India and
China into semi-colonies. "The present perspective of American Imperialism in
regard to India and China is to secure the domination of American finance capital
not through direct political rule, but rather through the strength of its economic and
financial stranglehold, utilizing the bourgeoisies of these countries as its agents for
the administration of the country ... In other words this is nominal independence on
the model of the South American semi-colonies." "American Imperialist Aims in
India," The Bolshevik Leninist. vo!. 2, no. 1 (February 1943), p. 1.
225
At the end of the debate the delegates adopted the "indirect rule"
position. According to the conference resolution, the transfer of power
will "not mean either India's freedom or the end of British
Imperialism." 26 On the contrary, "the domination of Britain will be
preserved in India, and can only be ended by revolutionary action."
Doric de Souza explained the BLPI's position in an article written for

the American journal, Fourth International. He emphasized that "in no
case does the loosening of political ties mean the liquidation of British
Imperialism, or the freedom of the colonies." 27
At bottom the BLPI position was that India could not "really" be
independent as long as she was economically subordinate to Britain.
The implication is that India could become economically independent.
That logical conclusion, however, runs counter to the Marxist theory of
imperialism. As long as imperialism remains dominant on a global
scale, no nation can ever be "financially independent." Lenin had
emphasized that finance capital dominates "even states enjoying the
fullest political independence." 28 Trotsky likewise stated that even the
USSR, which had a monopoly on foreign trade, could never escape
completely the pressure of world imperialism. That is precisely why
he objected to the Stalinist theory of "building socialism in one
country."
Freedom at Midnight
At midnight on August 15, 1947 Nehru mounted the ramparts of

Delhi's Red Fort and eloquently proclaimed the freedom for which
Indians had fought for so long. The popular mood was euphoric. The
Socialists pledged their support to the new Nehru government.
"Congress governments deserve the utmost sympathy in their task and
26
New Spark, 7 June 1947.
27
Doric de Souza, "The Crisis of British Imperialism," Fourth International, JulyAugust 1947, p. 204.
28
V.1. Lenin, "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1916), in V.1. Lenin,
Collected Works, vo\. 22, p. 259.
226
the cooperation of all who deserve freedom above all."

newspaper declared, "All support to Government." 30
29
The CPI
The Trotskyists swam against this stream. "The direct rule of

British imperialism," declared New Spark, "is being replaced by
indirect rule." 31 The settlement of August 15 was "a shameful sell-out
of the interests of the Indian people." 32 The BLPI den9unced the
Constitutent Assemblies sitting in New Delhi and Karachi as "Quisling
Assemblies, convened by the British Imperialists and meeting under
their patronage, and as unrepresentative of the people." The BLPI
pointed out that British capital still dominated the key sectors of the
economy, British warships were still docked in the harbours, and Lord
Mountbatten himself was Governor General of the Dominion ofIndia.
The BLPI opposed the partition of India: "while we stand fully for
the rights of secession of any nationality in India, we emphasise that
such rights can be exercised only when Imperialism is overthrown. The
free will of the masses in regard to Partition has not been expressed,
and cannot be until British Imperialism is overthrown. The vicious
attempt to carve up the living bodies of nationalities like the Punjabis
and the Bengalis is the most reactionary feature of the contemplated
Partition." The BLPI called for the "revolutionary re-unification" of
India. "For a single Revolutionary Constituent Assembly for India and
Pakistan, elected by the people on the basis of universal, secret and
direct suffrage." 33
The BLPI didn't give an ounce of support to the Nehru
government. "Henceforth the struggle against imperialism has to
proceed directly and from the very outset against the native
29
Janata, 23 February 1947.
30
People's Age, 15 August 1947.
31
32
New Spark, 3 January 1948.
33
New Spark, 25 October 1947; reprinted Quatrieme Internationale (November.

December 1947), pp. 39-40.
227
The 1i'otskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
bourgeoisie, who have become the gendarmes of imperialist interests

in India." 34 [emphasis in original] The BLPI stressed that the Congress
governments had broken strikes, fired upon workers, detained more
people without trial and used the old repressive laws (such as Section
144) more frequently than the British government.
The BLPI organized demonstrations against the "fake

independence." In the coalfields of Raniganj, for example, the BLPI
mobilized thousands of mine workers in a procession behind a large
banner of the Fourth International. The Trotskyists led chants, "Down
with the Fake Independence," "Down with the Congress-LeagueImperialist Alliance," "For a Workers State." According to the report in
the party paper, "The huge demonstration marched along the main
streets of the town and roused a great enthusiasm amongst the poor
sections of the population." 35
Two months later the BLPI organized a national tour featuring Ajit
Roy, a powerful platform speaker, who had recently returned to India
from England. Roy blasted the "fake independence" deal, the partition
of India, the repressive policies of the Nehru government, and the
"betrayal" of the Communists and Socialists in supporting the
"capitalist government." In Madras thousands attended two BLPI
rallies to hear Ajit Roy, as well as the Trotskyist trade-union leaders
from the Perambur Railway Workshops and the B&C Mills. 36
In these rallies the BLPI criticized the Nehru government for
failing to release political prisoners, restore democratic rights,
reorganize the provinces along linguistic lines, and abolish the Princely
States. The BLPI declared that "the Congress in power needs, just as
badly as the British imperialists, to maintain undisturbed the existing
administrative setup." 37 The BLPI raised the demand for Revolutionary
34
35
36
New Spark, 4 September 1948.
37
228
The Trotskyist Movement in India and Cey/on
Constituent Assemblies in the Princely States. 38 The Nehru

government absorbed all but 25 of the more than 600 States through a
cooperative, administrative, purely top-down manner that left the social
structures untouched.
The Independence Issue in Ceylon
Like their comrades on the mainland, both the LSSP and the BLPI
characterized the transfer of power as "fake independence" [eeniya
nidahasa]. Both maintained that "direct rule" would be replaced by
"indirect rule." But there were differences. The BLPI declared that
Ceylon would continue to be a colony. "Ceylon is thus not free but
continues to be in chains." 39 Philip Gunawardena, who was not so
blinkered by theoretical formulae, thought that was ridiculous. He
argued that Ceylon would get political independence but not economic
independence. "Henceforth the Ceylonese bourgeoisie will rule in
Ceylon, whilst British imperialism will continue to reign." 40
When the independence bill came before parliament, the LSSP
abstained in protest, while the BLPI delegation voted against the bill.
That led to a new round of polemics between the rivals. The LSSP took
the sensible view that a Marxist party can not oppose independence, as
limited as it was. The BLPI declared that the LSSP was moving
"progressively in the direction of becoming a petty bourgeois party." 41
Nevertheless, both the LSSP and BLPI boycotted the official
celebrations. Both mocked the "fake independence" and demanded an
38
39
Co Iv in R. de Silva, Independence: Real or Fake? (Colombo, 1948); reprinted

Quatrieme Internationale (January-February 1948), p. 54.
Samasamajist, 10 February 1948.
40
41
"Report of the First Party Convention Held May 21-24, 1947," p. 9; and New
Spark, 7 June 1947. One British Trotskyist who visited Ceylon at this point
characterized the LSSP as "a finished anti-Marxian tendency holding a
programmatic position fundamentally hostile to and irreconcilably divergent from
the entire political general line of the Fourth International." "Report by JF on the
Activities of the Bolshevik Leninist Party ofIndia During 1947."
229
end to specific manifestations of colonialism, such as the British

military base at Trincomalee and the British control over the plantation
economy.
"Fake" Versus "Formal" Independence
In March, 1948, Colvin de Silva delivered the keynote speech to the

Bengal Students Congress, where the BLPI had considerable influence.
He probably startled quite a few in the audience when he said: "The
expulsion of British Imperialism from India has not yet been
accomplished. Its definitive overthrow has yet to be achieved.. .India
has climbed up the ladder of colonial status: it has not leaped from it to
the ladder of national independence." 42 He continued to allude to
"secret treaties" between the British and Indian governments that
established the colonial status of India.
Other BLPI leaders had growing doubts about this line. Indra Sen,
the editor of New Spark; thought that the BLPI was denying reality in
order to defend doctrine. He published articles in the party newspaper
that implied that India was really independent. That provoked criticism
from those who thought India was still a colony or semi-colony. 43 The
whole question had to be re-opened at the next party conference, held
in Calcutta in 1948.
At the conference Leslie Goonewardene went straight to the heart
of the matter: "the question to decide was whether political power has
been transferred to the Indian bourgeoisie." 44 That was the essential
meaning of national independence. Indra Sen seconded this idea: "the
possession of political power by the bourgeoisie was equivalent to
42
43
44
Colvin R. de Silva, The Present Political Situation in India. Being the Inaugural
Address delivered on 5-3-48 at the All Bengal Students' Congress Annual
Conference at Uluberia (Calcutta, 1948), pp. 8-9.
Y. Chester [Y. Karalasingham), "The Obscurantism of Eclectics," Internal Bulletin,
vol. 3, no. 1 (1 March 1948), pp. 5-8. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
"Summary of Minutes of the Calcutta Convention of the BLPI, 1948," Internal
Bulletin, 31 August 1948, pp. 2-3. Hull: Haston, DJH/15G/14b.
230
'political independence'." Both Goonewardene and Sen cited Lenin's

writings to back their view. 4S Colvin de Silva stubbornly denied that
independence had been achieved. He stated that in the "share out of
political power," British imperialism was the "dominant partner."
The majority voted to scrap the "fake independence" position. 46
The conference resolution characterized India as a "semi-colony
enjoying political independence, but subject as before to the economic
domination of British imperial interests, which renders independence
formal." The Fourth International subsequently endorsed that
position. 47 And thus the Trotskyists belatedly resolved what had been a
glaring denial of reality.
45
46
47
Goonewardene saw an analogy in the case of Argentina, which Lenin regarded as

having achieved "fonnal political independence" in the first decade ofthe twentieth
century. Sen argued that a more apt parallel was Portugal, which Lenin
characterized as having "political independence."
Leslie Goonewardene, Indra Sen, Anthony Pillai, V. Karalasingham, Sethuraman,
Henry Peiris, K.P. Silva, Rajnarayan Arya, Madhav Rao, and Tulsi Boda thought
India had become essentially independent. Colvin de Silva, Dulal Bose, P.K. Roy,
G. Selvaraj, and Ajit Roy stuck to the "fake independence" line. "Summary of
Minutes of the Calcutta Convention of the BLPI, 1948," pp. 2-3.
In 1950 the Eighth .Plenum of the Executive Committee acknowledged the "fonnal
acquisition of independence" by India. Although "the economic weight of
imperialism continues to be exerted," impeding further development and tying the
native bourgeoisie "to the chariot of imperialism," the "new situation thus created
... should not be underestimated." "Resolution on the Developments of the
Colonial Revolutions in Asia," Quatrieme Internationale, May-June 1950; also
reprinted in International Information Bulletin, September 1950, p. 14.
231
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Demise and Regeneration

The partition of the subcontinent in 1947 marked the end ofa long era.
It was hard to keep faith in the dream of united class struggle when the
reality was mass slaughter and forced population transfers. Even
Gandhi fell victim. The BLPI had to do some serious rethinking of its
strategic perspectives. The Nehru government, though beset by crises,
had popular support. The BLPI remained a small party. Once again, the
Trotskyists wrestled with the question: What is to be done?
Philip Gunawardena urged the BLPI to join the Socialist Party
without further delay: "it is time we gave up repeating to ourselves that
all other parties and groups are discredited and that ours is the only
party-it is still nothing more than a propagandist group except in
Ceylon and perhaps in a portion of Madras Province ... This state of
affairs can be remedied by the entry of Bolshevik-Leninists into the
Socialist Party of India." I That had been his position since 1943.
The Congress Socialists were growing. In Bombay the Socialists
captured the Girni Kamgar Union, the CPI stronghold. The governor of
Bombay informed the Home Office that "the Congress Socialists are a
greater potential danger" than the Communists, who "do not want to
provoke trouble at this stage." 2 At the same time the Socialist leaders
continued to tail the Congress as it moved to the right. When Congress
entered the Constituent Assembly, J.P. Narayan proclaimed that
socialism could be won at the ballot box. 3 The Socialist Party was at a
D.P.R. Gunawardena, "Bolshevik-Leninists Should Enter Immediately the Socialist

Party ofIndia (C.S.P.)," Internal Bulletin [LSSP), Vol. 1, no. 2 (March 1947), p. 2.
The LSSP made the same appeal in its public press. See Evan Senanayake, "The
Fundamental Task of the Bolshevik-Leninists ofIndia!" Samasamajist. 20 October
1948, pp. 3, 7.
IOL: LlPJ/5/168. File Pol. 6360/1947 and File Pol. 7833/1947.
Indra Sen, Jai Prakash and the Road to Socialism (Madras, 1947), p. 5. Hull:
Brynmor Jones Library.
232
crossroads. In Kerala some Socialist dissidents were reported to be in

solidaity with the Trotskyist line. 4
The Entry Tactic Revisited
Though Philip was the godfather, the entry proposal had its own
independent sponsors in the BLPI. The initial champion was V. Sastry
in Bombay. 5 As mentioned earlier, Sastry had come from the UK in
1946. At that point the "entry tactic" was being hotly debated within
the British section of the FI. A minority wanted to enter the Labour
Party. In their view the radicalization of the British working class
would be expressed within the Labour Party. Therefore, the Trotskyists
had to go where the action was and sink deep roots.
Hector Abhayavardhana agreed with Sastry. They recruited
Sitanshu Das, a young student member in Bombay, to their viewpoint.
Das authored an internal document which echoed many of the
arguments raised by Phi lip Gunawardena. 6 He stated that the BLPI's
growth wouldn't have been so "unsatisfactory" if the party had entered
the Congress before or during the August movement. "Owing to the
lack of experience of the leadership of the party, that opportunity was
lost, irretrievably." He concluded that, given the small size of the BLPI,
the only way to win over the radical youth in the Socialist Party was to
enter that party en masse.
Leslie Goonewardene, the General Secretary of the BLPI, was not
convinced. As a disciplined Marxist thinker, he felt that the pro-entry
group had not clearly formulated their proposal. In his writings on the
entry tactic in the 'thirties, Trotsky emphasized the need for careful
One newspaper reported, "Some of the members who have resigned are considering
the formation of a branch of the Fourth International in Kerala." Mathrubhumi, 9
July 1947.
"it was V.S. Sastry who unhesitatingly pushed the need to enter the C.S.P." Letter
from Hector Abhayavardhana to the author, 10 May 1999.
Situ [Sitanshu Das], "Resolution for Entry into the Socialist Party," Internal
Bulletin (5 May 1947), pp. 1-2. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
233
preparation. That was precise-ty the problem with Philip

Gunawardena's various proposals' for regroupment and entryism. A
master of the big bold move, he never spelled out how the BLPI should
execute these risky manuevers. Leslie Goonewardene solicited input
from the International. In a letter to the American SWP he asked for
their documents on the question, particularly "the measures taken
beforehand to ensure a coordinated functioning within the Socialist
Party."?
Prior to the party conference in 1947, the BLPI Bureau drafted an
organizational resolution which mooted the entry tactic in conditional
terms. The resolution noted that the Congress Socialist Party might take
a left turn and support labor struggles, even against Congress
opposition. "In such an event it would be the duty of the BLPI to seek
entry into the Socialist Party and to work within it for such period of
time as it would take to coalesce the revolutionary elements in the SP
and to lead them out of the SP in order to form again the party of the 4th
International in India." 8 That triggered debate.
Fred Bunby, the British serviceman who remained in India,
supported the entry tactic. 9 He acknowledged that entry into the
Socialist Party would entail considerable risks and might even lead to
the loss of direct recruitment of workers to the party line. However,
that would be more than offset by the increased opportunities to recruit
educated cadres. "Stated in a single sentence, the whole case for entry
rests on the possibility it will afford for selecting and training
intelligentsia cadres on an all-India scale." He proposed a phased
approach. First a "strong and disciplined fraction" of BLPI members
would join the Socialist Party and form a "powerful faction." Then,
after six months the BLPI would decide the issue based on their
experience.
7
Letter from K. Tilak [Leslie Goonewardene] to Secretary, SWP, 14 April 1947.

"Organisational Resolution," Internal Bulletin (I April 1947), p. 5. Hoover: LSH,

box 52.
M. Usman [Fred Bunby], "A Contribution on Entry," Internal Bulletin (5 May
1947), pp. 2-4. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
234
At the conference Hector Abhayavardhana proposed a cautious

approach. He advocated that, as a first step, the BLPI should "send into
the SP a fraction that would agitate for the admission of Trotskyists
into the SP." 10 Leslie Goonewardene still wasn't convinced. He
questioned the basic assumption, namely that the Socialist Party was
really radicalizing and hence offered a fertile field for recruitment.
Anthony Pillai stated that "from his experience with SP leaders in
Madras, it was clear that this organisation would refuse to have in its
fold inteIligent cadres let alone Bolsheviks." Called to a vote, the
"entry tactic" was rejected 8-to-4.
After the conference the BLPI pulled no punches with the
Socialists. "We consider the S.P. to be a petty-bourgeois party, in
programme, policy, social composition, and tradition. We do not
believe that it is possible to convert such a party into a revolutionary
proletarian party any more than it is possible to convert Congress itself
into a 'Socialist Party'." 11 However, the Trotskyists granted that "the
majority of post-August militants who have joined the S.P." have not
reached that conclusion. And so the BLPI would try to open their eyes
with a barrage of polemics. The BLPI leaders recognized that the
Socialist militants needed to experience the betrayals "before they can
realize the need for building anew the revolutionary party of the Indian
proletariat. "
The Entry Faction
Although the entry proposal had been defeated at the 1947 party
conference, the advocates persisted. On September 7, 1947 the "Entry
Group" met in Bombay. 12 The group included the General Secretary of
the party (Hector Abhayavardhana) and another member of the central
committee (V. Sastry). According to the minutes of this meeting,
10
"Report of the First Party Convention Held May 21-24, 1947,".p. 8.
11
New Spark, 5 July 1947.
12
The "Entry Group" consisted of Hector Abhayavardhana, V. Sastry, Sitanshu Das,

Vinayak Purohit, Prabhakar More, and Ambalal.
235
various arguments were advanced in support of the entry tactic. But the
common denominator was the belief that the Socialist Party would
mushroom and radicalize, providing a fertile field of recruitment for
the Trotskyists. The Entry Group circulated the minutes of this meeting
within the BLPI as a discussion document.
The pro-entry group was strongest in Bombay and Kanpur,
precisely where the BLPI was weak compared to the Socialist Party.
The anti-entryists were concentrated in Bengal and Madras, where the
BLPI was stronger than the Socialists. Z.H. Khan, the Bengali trade
unionist, called the entry faction "frightened" and "disillusioned."13
Karalasingham called them "grave diggers ofthe BLPI." 14 Fred Bunby,
who had initially supported the entry idea, characterized the entrists as
"defeatists" and "get rich quickers." 15 On the other hand Raj Narayan
Arya, the Kanpur leader, argued that a small propaganda group like the
BLPI could not grow into a mass party by direct recruitment. In Madras
Anthony Pillai led the majority in opposing the entry tactic, while
B. M. K. Ramaswamy and Bodi Muthiah were in favor.
The most serious argument against the entry position, however,
came from the two comrades who had been sent to work inside the
Socialist Party in Bombay. They reported that there wasn't much
sympathy for their politics. Moreover, the Socialist leaders did not
tolerate criticism. "Under the circumstances," they concluded, "we, the
members of the Party fraction inside the SP, cannot agree with the idea
13
14
15
Khan [Zahrul Hasan Khan], "An Open Letter to the 'Entrists' ," Internal Bulletin,
vol. 3 no. 1 (1 March 1948), pp. 8-9. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
V. Chester [V. Karalasingham], "The Grave-Diggers of the BLPI," Internal
Bunby explained that he had supported the entry tactic, thinking that there would
be an "extremely rapid" radicalization of the masses in India. However, that had
not happened. Instead, there was a "profound political lull." Given the obvious
popularity of the Nehru government, the BLPI had to bite the bullet and patiently
build up its forces. M. Usman [Fred Bunby], "Why I Now Oppose Entry," Internal
236
of temporarily dissolving the Party and entering the SP wholesale." 16

Lakshman Jadav, another trade unionist who worked in a Socialist
union, also opposed the entry proposal.
A New Perspective
Indra Sen, an influential Marxist ideologue in the BLPI, thought the

entry faction was advocating the right tactic for the wrong reasons. He
thought the analogy with Europe in the 'thirties was wrong. He doubted
that the Socialist Party was going to keep radicalizing. In his view the
more likely variant was that the Socialists would evolve into a stable,
reformist opposition, an Indian version of the British Labour Party. If
that was the case, then different tactics and timeframes would be
involved. Rather than raiding the Socialist Party, the Trotskyists would
have to dig in for the long haul, much like what the minority of the
British RCP proposed to do in the Labour Party.
In reformulating the entry perspective Indra Sen pointed to several
important developments in India. First, after being forced to quit the
Congress, the Socialist leaders themselves spoke in terms of transforming
the party into a mass, social-democratic alternative. Second, the
Socialists were expanding their trade-union base, often by capturing
unions from the CPI. Third, the Socialists were keen to contest
elections and become the parliamentary opposition. The first such
contest was the Bombay municipal elections in early 1948. 17 The
Socialists did surprisingly well, trouncing the CPI and preventing
Congress from getting a majority. The BLPI described the outcome as a
"veritable landslide ofthe masses in the direction of the Socialist Party." 18
16
Appaswami [Po Bhaskaran] and Shapptram [S.R. Rao] , "Memorandum to the

B.L.P.I. from the Members of the Party Fraction inside the Socialist Party on the
Question of Entering the Socialist Party" [12 September 1947], Internal Bulletin.
vol. 3, no. 1 (1 March 1948), pp. 9-10. Hoover: LSH, box 52. Also Interview with
T.R. Rao and S.R. Rao, 13 June 1974.
17
The BLPI fielded one candidate, Anant Mandekar, the trade unionist. The Socialists
won 26 seats. The CPI won only 5. The BLPI candidate lost to a Socialist by 3,136to-641 votes.
18
New Spark, 6 March 1948.
237
Indra Sen eventually won over Leslie Goonewardene to his longtenn entry proposal. Goonewardene in turn won over Anthony Pillai,
also a Central Committee member. Thus, the entry faction now had all
three members of the Political Bureau (Abhayavardhana, Sastry, and
Anthony Pillai) and a majority in the Central Committee (5 of the 7). 19
The Political Bureau called for a special conference of the party to
resolve the issue.
Fourth International Intervention
In late 1947 the BLPI sent Kamalesh Bannerji to Paris to represent the
BLPI in the International Secretariat (IS) and the International
Executive Committee (1EC) of the Fourth International. Bannerji
opposed the entry proposal, or at least the way in which the discussion
was proceeding in the BLPI. The IS agreed and decided to intervene.
In July, 1948 Michel Pablo, the rising star of the International
Secretariat in Paris, sent a letter to the BLPI Political Bureau on behalf
of the IS in which he expressed concern that the BLPI was "seriously
divided over this issue." 20 He cautioned that without careful
preparation and unity an entry into the Socialist Party "can mean the
disintegration and even the loss of the organization." The IS therefore
recommended that the decision be postponed until the BLPI leadership
conducts "a serious discussion" in the party "with the participation of
the International." The IS did not reject the entry proposal per se. 21 In
fact, Pablo recommended that a section of the BLPI, even the entire
Bombay branch, enter the Socialist Party as an experiment.
19
20
21
At that point the pro-entry members of the Central Committee were

Abhayavardhana, Sastry, Anthony Pillai, Leslie Goonewardene, and Indra Sen. The
opponents were Hiranand Mishra and V. Karalasingham.
Letter from Pilar [Michel Pablo] to BLPI, 20 July 1948.
In the letter to the BLPI Pablo granted that the entry tactic r:tight be appropriate,
given the "relative stability" in India, the "still relatively favorable economic
conjuncture," and the "still important political prestige of Congress amongst the
broad masses." He noted that "our party does not seem to be able to make serious
progress."
238
The BLPI Political Bureau circulated the IS letter to the party

units, requesting their opinions. Meanwhile, the Political Bureau
proceeded with making all the arrangements for the special party
convention. When the IS didn't receive a reply to its letter, they sent a
sternly worded letter, dated September 10, 1948, in which they pulled
rank and ordered the BLPI not to enter the Socialist Party until such
time as the IS approved. When the BLPI Political Bureau received this
letter, the Special Convention was less than a month away. The BLPI
leadership decided to proceed.
The Special Convention
The Central Committee drafted a resolution in favor of entry to be

presented to the Special Convention. 22 The resolution argued that the
Socialist Party was in the process of becoming a mass Social
Democratic Party, along the lines of the British Labour Party or the
European Socialist Parties. Therefore the Trotskyists would have to
enter with a longer-term perspective. The Special Convention met in
Calcutta, October 15-17, 1948. There were nine delegates, representing
the Madras, Calcutta, Bombay, and Kanpur branches of the party.
Colvin de Silva attended as a fraternal representative from Ceylon.
Introducing the entry resolution, V. Karalasingham put the case
succinctly. "Since a mass Social Democratic Labour Party is in the
process of formation for the first time in India it is our duty to
participate in this movement." 23 Leslie Goonewardene pointed out that
the Trotskyists would have to join the Socialist Party with the
.perspective of burrowing in for the long haul. "Since it is a new mass
Social Democratic Labour Party that is coming into being, our tactic
will have to be different from entry tactics employed by FI sections
previously. We would have to participate in this movement for building
22
23
"Resolution on Entry as Passed by the Special Convention," n.d., I page. Hoover:

LSH, box 52.
"Report of the CC of the BLPI on the Special Convention," n.d., p. 2. Hoover:
LSH, box 52.
239
this new instrument which the masses desired for fighting Congress
and the Capitalists."
The two anti-entry delegates, P.K. Roy and Hiranand Mishra,
opposed the resolution. But when it was put to the vote, they
capitulated, declaring that "it is better that the Bengal Unit enter
unitedly." Thus, the entry resolution was adopted unanimously.
The convention also discussed what to say to the International
Secretariat. The conference adopted the following resolution: "While
being fully conscious of the right of the IS to intervene and even override the decisions of the sections of the International, this convention
considers it would be a tragic set-back to the Party in India and to the
FI movement as a whole, if the IS either through delay in replying or
by reversal of the unanimous decision of this Convention, were to
prevent the Indian Party from carrying out in an effective and timely
manner the tactic of entry into the SP." 24 In other words the BLPI
presented the IS with a/ait accompli.
Merger with Socialist Party
After the conference the BLPI leaders met with their Socialist
counterparts. The BLPI proposed a formal merger. But the Socialists
were no fools. In the late 'thirties J.P. Narayan had welcomed the CPI
into the Socialist fold. Once burned, twice shy. The Socialists insisted
that the BLPI would first have to dissolve. After that, its members
could apply for membership, as individuals. The Socialists warned that
no factions or separate discussion bulletins would be tolerated. 25
Moreover, the former BLPI members were to sever all connections
with the Fourth International. If these conditions were met, then the
Socialist Party's General Council would ratify the deal.
24
"Resolution of Special Convention on I.S. Letter of 7th October 1948," typescript,

1 page. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
25
"Report of Committee on S.P. Negotiations (22 July 1948)," Internal Bulletin, vol.
3 (August 1948), pp. 2-4. Hoover: LSH, box 52.
The terms could not have been much worse. But the BLPI
leadership agreed. When the terms were presented to the membership,
the BLPI leaders promised that a guiding center would be established
in Bombay. "When the leadership decided on entry," recalls Raj
Narayan Arya, "it promised to maintain a nucleus to guide its members
in the S.P. but the stress was on discreetness." 26 In September, 1948
the BLPI published the last issue of New Spark. In Bombay and U.P.
the Trotskyists joined well-established Socialist Party branches. 27 In
Madras the Trotskyists formed branches where none had existed
before.
As promised, the Socialists gave the Trotskyists key positions in
the party. Ajit Roy was co-opted into the National Executive
Committee. Indra Sen became joint editor of Janata, the Socialist
newspaper. Hector Abhayavardhana became Joint Secretary of the
Socialist Party in Madras. Anthony Pillai became a big gun in the Hind
Mazdoor Sabha, the Socialist labor federation. 28 By all accounts the
Trotskyists worked energetically to establish their credentials as loyal
members of the Socialist Party. All the former BLPI leaders contributed
regularly to Janata. Pillai ran for Madras Municipal Council on the SP
ticket and won. In Bombay the Trotskyist trade unionists began training
a new generation of rank-and-file labor leaders.
After some months Janata praised the Trotskyists: "In the tradeunion field as well as in the political sphere, it [the Socialist Party] has
secured the complete support of the Bolshevik Leninist Party and now
that party has completely merged itself with the Socialist Party. This
party had considerable organised strength in the labour field in Madras,
which is now the united strength of the determined Socialist movement.
This is indeed a remarkable achievement and the credit for it goes as
much to these broad-minded and earnestly Socialist comrades as to the
sincere desire of the party to extend its hand to every genuine Socialist
26
Letter from Raj NarayanArya to author, 20 October 1977.
27
Janata, 24 October 1948.
28
Quatrieme Internationale, October-November, 1948, p. 56.
241
who accepts the discipline of democracy in the land." 29 The Socialists

had got the better end of the bargain.
A Handicapped Opposition
In 1948 the Socialist leaders opened a discussion on whether the party

should remain a cadre organization or broaden into a mass party. 30 J.P.
Narayan, the weary former revolutionary, wanted to open the
floodgates. He had finally given up on revolution and embraced
democracy as the only path to socialism. 31 Just as the BLPI had
predicted, the Socialists wanted to transform the party into a outright
Social Democratic organization in doctrine as well as structure.
At the same time, however, the Socialist leaders proposed to make
the party less democratic. In their view the mass party should not allow
any "organized groups" or provide for any factional rights whatsoever.
That is not what the Trotskyists had anticipated. If the membershp
requirements were lowered, the party would be flooded with new
members, causing the average political level to sink even more. And if
political tendencies were banned, the Trotskyists would have no way to
explain their politics and critique the leadership.
At the 1949 conference of the party the Trotskyist delegates waged
a floor fight on this issue. They argued for a cadre organization that
ensured democratic rights for minority tendencies within the party.
~hey couched their criticism in soft, supportive terms. That didn't help.
J.P. Narayan carried the day. The conference adopted a new
constitution that prohibited organized groups within the party.
After the conference the Socialist leaders went on a witchhunt,
purging a number of left-wing critics in Bombay, where the Trotskyists
had been building their own base of support. 32 When Indra Sen wrote
29
Janata, 22 May 1949.
3D
Janata, 21 November 1948.
31
Janata, 9 October 1949 and 16 October 1949.
32
Janata, 1 May 1950.
242
an article stating that a more militant policy was "the need of the hour,"
he was dismissed as Janata co-editor. 33 In Calcutta Selina Perera was
disciplined for teaching new recruits that a revolution was consistent with
the Socialist Party's original Policy Statement, which in fact did contain
a reference to armed insurrection, a hangover from even earlier times.
The Trotskyists inside the SP created front-groups to publish
Trotskyist literature. In Calcutta the "Militant Club" reprinted some
pamphlets by Trotsky. 34 In Bombay T.R. Rao formed "Modem India
Publications" and published pamphlets by Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg,
and former BLPI leaders.35
The Showdown over Korea
In 1950 the main political issue of the day was the Korean war. The
Socialist Party took the position of the Socialist International, calling
for a "Third Camp" between the two superpowers (the USA and the
Soviet bloc) to oppose both Imperialism and Stalinism. In their view
the key issue was the violation of South Korean independence. The
Shachtman group in the US took the same line. The Fourth
International, on the other hand, saw the conflict in terms of the global
Cold War. In their view China and North Korea were "deformed
workers states." Hence, in any conflict with "imperialism" and its
surrogates, like the United Nations, the workers states had to be
unconditionally defended, despite their Stalinist regimes.
At the 1950 conference of the Socialist Party the Trotskyists
formed a bloc with other dissidents on the issue. They put forward an
amendment stating that global power politics, not Korean
independence, was at issue and that the United Nations was fronting
33
Janata, 2 July 1950.
34
L. Trotsky, What is an Insurrection? (Militant Club/Bireswar Butta, 1948.)
35
Some of the pamphlets produced by Modem India Publications include: L. Trotsky,

Stalinism and Bolshevism (1952), L. Trotsky, The October Revolution (1952), L.
Trotsky, Marxism and Science, Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution, and Indra
Sen, Communist Policy Today: A Marxist Analysis (1952).
243
for US military intervention. J.P. Narayan replied that only the UN

could force North Korea "to undo what the latter had perpetrated." 36
To make matters worse, the Trotskyists were divided on this
question. V. Karalasingham, once a fiery left-winger, embraced the
Third Camp line. In a letter to Janata, the Socialist party paper,
Karalasingham stated that "we lend no support to either camp in
Korea." 37 That put the other Trotskyists in a bind. If they ignored this
deviation, then how could they continue to criticize the Socialist
leaders? But in order to disavow it they would have to identify with the
Fourth Intemationalline, and that would surely lead to reprisals. Selina
Perera tried to walk a tightrope. In a letter to Janata she stated that "the
rejection of both sides is not the position of the Socialist Party." 38 Her
critics pointed out, quite rightly, that she was trying to sweep a
principled difference under the rug. 39 That made the Trotskyists look
like disingenuous opportunists themselves.
By 1950 it was clear that the entry wasn't working as planned. The
leadership failed to lead. 40 The local groups lost contact with one
another. Raj Narayan Arya, once an enthusiastic advocate of the entry
tactic, summed up the situation well in a letter to the former BLPI
leaders. "It is fatal to build SP and to create a rival; for even if we leave,
the SP will have its apparatus built by us-for which noble purpose
36
37
38
Janata, 1 October 1950.
39
In a letter to Janata one critic quoted at length from the Shachtman group's polemic
against the SWP on the issue of Korea. Janata, 8 October 1950. Another letter
noted that Trotskyists were hypocritical, since there were differences on Korea even
within the Fourth International. Janata, 29 October 1950. In response Perera
confined herself to quoting from the LSSP's Samasamajist, which stated that "the
Korean masses have rallied around the latter [the North Korean regime] to fight the
invasion." Janata, 29 October 1950.
40
"When the leadership decided on entry, it promised to maintain a nucleus to guide

its members in the SP. I think that nucleus did not function. For I, at Kanpur, lost
all contact with the central leadership of the BLPI in Bombay." Letter from Raj
NarayanArya to author, 20 October 1977.
244
they have invited us-and then use that apparatus against us."
called the entry a "fatal step."
41
He
Mission from Paris
In 1950 the International Secretariat (IS) of the Fourth International

belatedly decided to do something about the shipwreck of the Indian
section. Initially the IS had opposed the entry proposal. But the
thinking was changing in Paris. Michel Pablo now saw "entryism" as
the best way for Trotskyists to overcome their isolation. The IS was
instructing various sections of the FI to liquidate into the Communist
and Socialist parties. The IS asked Kamalesh Bannerji, the Indian
representative in the IS, to return to India and revitalize the Trotskyists
inside the Socialist Party.
Bannerji was depressed by what he found. In Calcutta his mentor,
Ajit Roy, had capitulated to the Socialists. 42 P.K. Roy and Hiranand
Mishra were vegetating, complaining that "nothing could be done in
the Socialist Party." Karalasingham had become a Shachtmanite. 43
Only Selina Perera, one of the few Ceylonese who chose to remain in
India, was working hard to make the entry a success.
In Bombay the BLPI group had begun to disintegrate. V. Sastry,
the most ardent champion of the entry tactic, proved to be not very
reliable. He had difficulty earning a living as a journalist and eventually
returned to his native village in Andhra Pradesh, where he ran a
Tutorial Institute. 44 He attended national SP conferences for a while
41
Quoted in letter from Raj Narayan Arya to author, 31 March 1997.
42
At the 1950 conference, when his comrades were fighting for minority rights, Ajit
Roy declared, "Democratic Socialism should be the article offaith of the Party and
nobody who did not believe in it should have room in the Party." Quoted in Janata,
July 16, 1950.
43
Karalasingham subsequently abandoned this view and described the USSR as a

"socialist economy." V. Karalasingham, "Soviet Industrial Growth 1917-1961,"
Young Socialist [Colombo], 3 (October-December 1961), pp. 165-68.
44
Letter from Hector Abhayavardhana to the author, dated 22 June 1998.
245
and then retired from politics. After he was sacked as Janata co-editor
Indra Sen also had to leave Bombay in order to support himself.
Ramesh Karkal and Tulsi Boda remained the Trotskyist stalwarts in
Bombay.
In Madras, where the Trotskyists could have made their biggest
impact, Anthony Pillai had become just another ambitious trade union
boss. He was busy building his trade-union fiefdoms. In addition to his
base in the MLU he led the Madras Port Trust Employees Union. He
didn't repudiate Trotskyism. He just ignored it. Some of his more
earnest Trotskyist comrades in Madras felt betrayed and bitter.
Indra Sen and Kamalesh Bannerji called for a meeting in New
Delhi to plan how to salvage the situation. Leslie Goonewardene came
up from Ceylon. Tulsi Boda came from Bombay. I have not seen any
minutes from this meetng. But not much seems to have resulted.
Kamalesh Bannerji contributed articles to the Socialist paper, Janata. 45
Using his pseudonym, "Ali," he also translated articles for the Pakistani
journal, Spark, published by Abid Zuberi, a BLPI member who went to
Pakistan and worked in the "Democratic Youth League" in Karachi.
Bannerji was demoralized. After less than a year he returned to
Paris, where he resumed work with the IS. But that led to more
heartbreaks. At that point the IS was embroiled in factional intrigues. 46
The "orthodox Trotskyists," centered on the French section, were
resisting Michel Pablo and his "revisionist" line. Bannerji got
entangled. After the Fourth International split in 1953, he apparently
4S
Bannerji's articles appeared in Janata from April, 1950 to March, 1951.
46
In the IS Bannerji evidently supported the majority of the French section of the FI
who opposed Pablo and his "revisionist" ideas. However, he flip-flopped and later
helped Pablo defeat the French leadership. He fell out with Pablo and for a while
worked for the expelled French group. In 1956 he and Margaret Buber-Neuman
(1901-89) became a couple. She was the widow of Heinz Neuman, the famous
German Communist leader whom Stalin executed in 1937. Stalin dispatched her to
Siberia. After the Stalin-Hitler pact the Soviet government handed her over to the
Nazis. She was one of the few to survive the Ravensbruck concentration camp. She
was disillusioned, to say the least, and became an anti-Communist.
246
retired from active politics, sank deeper into a1choholism, squandered

his talent, and died an early death.
The Last Stand
In 1951 the Nehru government called for a general election, the first
since Independence. The Socialist leaders had high hopes. The party
fielded candidates all over the country. The Socialists claimed to stand
for the ideals of the old Gandhian Congress, which they said placed the
interests of workers and peasants before those of landlords and
capitalists. lP. Narayan, the old Socialist warhorse, attacked Congress
for betraying its commitment to the poor.
The Socialists underestimated their opponents. Nehru was at the
pinnacle of his popularity and prestige. He talked socialism. He
promised to modernize India with Soviet-style Five Year Plans. The
CPI had also made a big comeback. When the Cold War began, Stalin
had no choice except to shift back to a more confrontational posture.
The CPI switched from support to the Nehru government to opposition.
The Stalinists carried out militant campaigns. In Hyderabad the
Communists resorted to armed struggle. The victory of the Chinese
Communists in 1949 gave the CPI added prestige.
The Congress won a landslide victory,. securing 364 of the 489
seats in the Lok Sabha (lower house). The Socialists-only won 12 seats.
On top of that the CPI made a dramatic comeback, winning 25 seats,
making it the largest opposition group in the Lok Sabha. The Socialists
were stunned. Some of the leaders concluded that Nehru had stolen
their Socialist thunder. J.P Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia called for
a new doctrine to replace the old Marxism. Like Vinoba Bhave, they
put great emphasis on decentralization and small-machine industries.
That promped heated opposition.
At the Socialist convention in May, 1952, the Trotskyist delegates
made their last stand in the Socialist Party. Sheila Perera attacked Ram
Manohar Lohia for his anti-Communist line on the USSR. "The
Russian Revolution released tremendous forces of production which
gave a glorious and progressive economic foundation to the worker's
247
state. It was later that on this glorious economic foundation a

bureaucratic parasitic Stalinism foisted itself." 47 Prabhakar More, the
Trotskyist from Bombay, attacked Lohia's fuzzy ideas about
decentralized socialism based on smail manufacturing. "It is not that
only decentralisation leads to democracy. What is of importance is
whether the workers have a responsibility in the management and
running of industries." 48
After the convention some of the Socialist leaders, including J.P.
Narayan, began behind-the-scenes discussions with Acharya Kripalani,
a veteran Congressman who had formed the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party
(KMPP), which espoused a return to the old ideals of Mahatma
Gandhi. They proposed that the two parties merge. The left-wing
Socialists were up in arms. Even Sampurnanand, the old Socialist
stalwart, publically denounced the proposed merger as a :'betrayal of
socialism."49 But the leadership went ahead anyway. The two parties
merged to form Praja Socialist Party, with Kripalani as President and
Ram Manohar Lohia as the General Secretary.
The former BLPI leaders decided to defy the merger and keep the
flag of the Socialist Party flying. On September 27, 1952 the dissidents
held a conference of "loyal Socialists" in Bombay. The former BLPI
leaders who participated included Tulsi Boda, Hector Abhayavardhana,
Selina Perera, S.C.C. Anthony Pillai, Indra Sen, S. Am arnath , and
Rajendra Trivedi. They called their rump organization the Socialist
Party (loyalist). Hector Abhayavardhana became editor of their
newspaper, Socialist Appeal, published in Madras. They issued a
pamphlet condemning the merger.
Up to that point the Trotskyists had masqueraded as loyal
Socialists in order to avoid expulsion. That threat was gone now. But
the Trotskyists pretty much continued to speak and function like left-
47
Socialist Party of India, Report of the Special Convention, held at Pachmarhi,

Madhya Pradesh, 23rd to 27th May, 1952 (Bombay, 1952), p. 10.
48
Report of the Special Convention, p. 37.
49
Janata, 4 January 1953.
248
wing social democrats. They proudly claimed that they were the true
Socialists. Alas, for some, the mask had become the face.
Regeneration
Up to now I have focused on the BLPI. However, the rival groups-the

Mazdoor Trotskyist Party (Purdy group) and the Bolshevik Mazdoor
Party (Shukla group )-soldiered on. The Mazdoor Trotskyists, in
particular, built a modest base in the labor movement in Bombay and
Hyderabad. 50 The Shukla group had some active members, like Jagu
Belani, and continued to issue Trotskyist literature in Bombay.
Meanwhile, in Calcutta the former BLPI members who had
opposed entry, notably P.K. Roy and Hiranand Mishra, left the Socialist
Party in frustration and formed their own organization. In the United
Provinces Raj Narayan Arya did the same.
Eventually, these small groups teamed up to work towards a rebirth
of the Trotskyist movement. More former members of the BLPI,
especially in South India, climbed on to the bandwagon. By the mid1950s they had regrouped and recruited enough supporters to form a
new all-India party that was bigger and in many ways better than the
old BLPI. But that is another story.
so
In Bombay the MTP was active in the Electrical Service Workers Union, the
Reshim Kamgar Union, the Transport Workers Union, the Textile Labour Union,
lel Employees Union, the Vegetable Products Workers Union, and the Rubber
Workers Union. In U.P. the MTP capitalized on the fame of Ambika Singh and
organized the Gavai Mazdoor Sangh [village workers' associations]. The MTP led
some militant peasant struggles in Jaunpur, Pratapgarh, Sultanpur, Rai BareIli, and
Benares. In Hyderabad Mallik Arjun Rao became a leader in the railway workers
union.
249
APPENDIX A
Biographical Notes
Abhayavardhana, Hector (1919-present)
Party pseudonyms: Suren Morarji, H.A. Vardhan, Surendra.
Born Kandy, Ceylon, son of Hector Wilfred Abeywardena. Educated
St. Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia; University College, Colombo; and
Colombo Law College. Joined LSSP, 1940. Founding member BLPI.
Relocated to India, 1942. Arrested 1943, deported to Ceylon, returned
to India 1944. Worked in BLPI groups in Calcutta, U.P., Bihar, and
Bombay, 1942-48. Attended BLPI conference, 1944. Editorial Board,
New Spark, 1947-48. Delegate, BLPI conference, 1947. Central
Committee, Political Bureau, and General Secretary BLPI, 1947-48.
Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Editor, Socialist Vanguard, 1951-52 and
Socialist Appeal, 1951-53. Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Joined SP
(Lohia), 1956. Editor: Mankind, Maral, The Nation, and Socialist
Nation. Chairman, Peoples' Bank, Sri Lanka, 1970-75. Author: The
Saboteur Strategy of the Constructive Program (1945), The August
Struggle and its Significance (1947), and Internationalism and
Socialism in Asia (1956).
Aggarwala, Hans Raj (1906-1932)

Party pseudonym: Chandu Ram.
Born Amritsar, son of Lala Sundar Das. Went to UK, 1926. Joined
League Against Imperialism and London Branch of Indian National
Congress. Co-founder, Marxian League, 1929-30. Returned to India,
1932. Killed in automobile accident.
Amarnath, S. (?-1981)
Joined BLPI in Madras while a student. Captain, B&C Mills Volunteer
Corps, 1947-48. Jailed 1947-48. Worked in union of Non-Gazetted
Officials of the Madras Government, 1948. Entered Socialist Party,
250
1948. Moved to Bombay. Central Committee, Revolutionary

Communist Party of India, 1960. Leading member, Socialist Workers
Party and Communist League (1960s and 1970s).
Angadi, Ayana Veerayaswami (1903-1993)
Party pseudonyms: Raj Hansa, Ayana Devi, Taya Deva.
Born Jakanur (District Bijapur, Karnataka). Educated Oxford. Worked
with British Communist Party in early 'thirties. Joined Revolutionary
Socialist League (C.L.R. James), 1939. Contributor, New Leader.
Joined British Army, November, 1942; appointed Lecturer, Central
Advisory Council for Adult Education in H.M. Forces. Left the
movement after the war.
Anthony PilIai, Caroline ("Caro") (1906 - present)
Born Boralugoda (Kosgama, Avissawella of Hevagam Korale),
Ceylon, daughter of Don Jacolis Rupasinghe Gunawardena, sister of
Phi lip and Robert Gunawardena. Educated Museaus College,
Colombo. Participated in Suriya Mal movement. Delegate, Indian
National Congress, 1937. Married S.C.C. Anthony Pillai, 1939.
Member, BLPI, Madras, 1943-48. Strike leader, Madras Labour
Union, 1947. Entered SP, 1948. Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Joined
SP (Lohia), 1956. After death of Anthony Pillai in 2000, returned to Sri
Lanka and resides in the Gunawardena ancestral home in Boralugoda.
Anthony PilIai, Sebastian Cyril Constantine ("Tony") (1914-2000)
Party pseudonym: S. Krishna Menon.
Born Jaffna, Ceylon, son of S. Anthony Pillai. Educated St. Patrick's,
Jaffna; Ceylon University College, Colombo; and London University.
Joined India League and C.L.R. James group, London. Joined LSSP,
1938. Organizer, granary workers union, Colombo. Went to Madura,
1942. Leader, BLPI Madras, 1942-45. Delegate to BLPl conference,
1944. Central Committee, BLPI, 1944-48. Jailed at Alipuram, 194546. President, Madras Labour Union, 1946-75 and 1983. Leader, B&C
Mills strike, 1947. General Council, All-India Trade Union Congress,
251
The r,'otskyist Movement in India and Ceylol1
1947. Executive Committee, Workers United Front, 1947. Attended

BLPI conferences, 1947 and 1948. Entered Socialist Party, 1948.
Elected to Madras City Corporation, 1948. Joined SP (Loyalists),
1952. Joined SP (Lohia), 1956. General-Secretary, Madras Port Trust
Employees' Union. General Secretary and Vice President, All-India
Port and Dock Workers Federation. President, All India Transport
Workers Union. Vice President, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, 1952 and 196074; President, Hind Mazdoor Sabha (Tamil Nadu Council), 1957-58.
Member, Madras Assembly, 1952-57. Member of Parliament, Lok
Sabha, 1957-62. Member Lok Sabha, 1962-67. Trustee, Chennai Port
Trust.
Appanraj, Karuppiab (1923-present)
Born Madras Province, son of M. Karuppiah Servai. Attended
American College, Madura, 1941-44. Opposed "People's War" line of
CPI in the Students Congress, Madura. Had connections to important
local Congressmen, like T.G. Krishnamurthy. Joined BLPI in Madura,
1942. Participated in Quit India movement, 1942-43, and went
underground with Krishnamurthy, Sholavandan Karuppa Pillai,
Kodimangalam Ponniah Ambalam, and other Congress radicals.
Worked with textile workers, Coimbatore, 1945-6; mill workers,
Tuticorin, 1946-7; and Mahalakshmi mill workers, Madura, 1947.
Delegate to BLPI conference, 1947. Led a peasant union in
Sholavandan. Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Editor, Tamil edition of
Socialist Appeal, 1951-53. Leader, Socialist Party (Loyalists), 1952-5.
President, Tamil Nadu SP (Lohia). Editor, Manaitha Kuiam, 1956,
General Secretary, South Madras District Congress Committee, 196874. President, Tamil Nadu National Trade Union Congress, 1974-76.
General Secretary, Tamil N adu Congress, 1979-80; Propaganda
Committee, Tamil Nadu Congress, 1984. Author: Anja nenjan:
Thoyizh sangha medai s.c.c. Anthoni Pillai, vazhkai varalaru [The
Fearless One: Biography of the Labour Leader, S.C.C. Anthony Pillai]
(1995); Puratchi Pathai [Way to Revolution], translation ofK. Tilak,
The Rise and Fall o/the Comintern.
252
Arya, Raj Narayan (1926-present)

Educated Allahabad University; active in local Students' Congress.
Joined BLPl, 1944. Worked as chemist at the Royal Ordnance Factory,
Kanpur. Delegate to BLPI conferences, 1947 and 1948. Entered
Socialist Party, 1948~ Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952; elected member of
its National Executive. Secretary, Textile Workers Union Suti Mill
Mazdoor Sabha. Founder, Socialist Prakashan (publishing house),
Kanpur. Central Committee, Revolutionary Communist Party ofIndia,
1960. Editor, Mazdoor Kisan Kranti [Kanpur], 1973. Joined
Revolutionary Socialist Party, 1980. Author: Problems of Minorities
(Urdu), Caste System Through History and Present Tasks: A Marxist
View, and Brahmin and Brahminism: A Historical Survey (2001).
Attygalle, Richard c.L. ("Dickie") (1919-1963)
Party pseudonym: Rudra.
Educated Ceylon University College. Joined LSSP, 1939. Active in
BLPl, 1942-50. Member Editorial Board, Fight (Colombo). Senior
English Teacher, Royal College, Colombo. Worked for UNESCO in
Paris, 1951-61. Appointed to the National Education Commission
(Ceylon). Visiting lecturer in English, Vidyalankara University.
Bagchi, Amal
Joined BLPl in Bengal. Leader, Bengal Paper Mill Mazdoor Union,
Raniganj. Working Secretary, Paper Mills Employees Union, Titagarh
and Kankimara. Secretary, Titagarh Jute Workers Union, 1948.
Baghavan, R. Saravana ("Baggy") (1927-1987)
Born Ceylon. Educated Trinity College, Kandy, and Royal College,
Colombo. Joined LSSP, 1942. Member, BLPI, 1942-50. Translated
Marxist writings for LSSP. Entered legal profession 1956 and worked
as a solicitor. Author: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Marxism
(1962). Founding member, LSSP (Revolutionary), 1964. Editorial
Board, Young Socialist, 1966-67.
253
Balasingham, V. (ca. 1919-1944)
Party pseudonym: Peter.

Born Jaffna, Ceylon, elder brother of V. Karalasingham. Educated
Ceylon University College. Joined LSSP. Sent to India, 1941.
Organized a Trotskyist circle in Madura. Developed important
connections with radical Congressmen. Arrested in Madras, July 1941.
Struck by a military lorry while walking along the road in Colombo
and killed, 1944.
Balasubramaniam, V.
Born Bodinayakkanur (Theni District, Tamil Nadu). Joined BLPI

during WWII. Author: October Puratzhi: Trotsky [October
Revolution: Trotsky] (1991).
Banerjea, Dhiren
Joined BLPI in Calcutta. Worked as a teacher. Active in All Bengal

Teachers Association after independence. Settled in Dalmianagar,
Bihar.
Bannerji, Kamalesh Chandra (1910-1967)
Party pseudonyms: Chatterjee, Mahmoud, and Hakim Mirza.

Pseudonym,s in International Secretariat of Fourth International:
Bernard, Mahmoud, and Ali.
Born in Bengal, son of a Bengali father and Irish mother. Schooled in
Calcutta. Joined the Civil Disobedience campaign, 1930-32. Jailed for
6 months. Joined the Students' Radical PatiY. Recruited to Trotskyism
by Ajit Roy, 1937-38. Founder, Revolutionary Socialist League of
Bengal, 1940. Founding leader, BLPI. Jailed 1942-45. Sent to Paris,
1947, as BLPI representative to Fourth International. Worked in Paris
as Foreign correspondent, Amrita Bazaar Patrika. Member,
International Secretariat of Fourth International, 1947. Attended
Second World Congress of the Fourth International, 1948. Visited
Yugoslavia and interviewed Tito and other leaders of the Yugoslav CP,
February, 1950. Sent back to India to help regroup the Trots.kyists in
254
the Socialist Party, 1950-51. Sided with Michel Pablo in split in IS,
1953. Became estranged from the Fourth International leadership.
Companion to Margarete Buber-Neumann (1901-89). Returned to
India, 1967.
Belani, Jagu Bhatt (1928-present)
Born Princely State of Bhavnagar (Gujarat). Joined Bolshevik
Mazdoor Party after WWII. Secretary, West Zone Committee, BMP.
Worked in Bhavnagar (Gujarat). Chairman, Anti-Unemployment
Committee, Ahmedabad, 1959. Lifelong political activist.
Boda, Tulsi Dayalji (1923-2003)
Born Princely State Kutch (Gujarat). Educated in Bombay.
Participated in Quit India movement; jailed for 14 months. Joined
Bolshevik Mazdoor Party, 1944. Joined BLPI, 1946. Organized
Woolen Mill Kamgar Union at the Usha Mills, Bombay, 1947. Jailed,
July 1947. Secretary, Bombay BLPI, 1947. Delegate, BLPI
conference, 1948; elected to Central Committee. Delegate, Special
Convention BLPI, October 1948. Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Joined
SP (Loyalists), 1952. Secretary, All-India Federation of Textile
Workers. Leader, Bombay Labour Union and LIC Employees Union.
Joined SP (Lohia), 1956. Joined Samyukta Socialist Party, 1964.
Leader, Kutch Satyagraha, 1968. Convenor, Samajwadi Abhiyan in
Maharashtra and Gujarat. President, People's Union for Civil
Liberties, Gujarat. Author: The Human Right-An Unending Struggle
and Conflict (1997).
Bose, Dulal (1918-2001)
Born. in Calcutta. Educated Taltola High School and Vidyasagar
College, Calcutta. Joined Revolutionary Socialist League, 1939.
Founding member, BLPI, 1942. Worked at Mackenzie Lyall & Co.,
Calcutta, during the war. Editorial Board, Permanent Revolution.
Secretary, Titagarh Paper Mills Employees' Union, Calcutta Match
Workers' Union, and Calcutta Firefighters Union. Delegate, BLPI
255
The Trotskyist Movement in. India and Ceylon
conference, 1948. Entered Socialist Party, 1948; withdrew 1949.

Active Trotskyist in Calcutta, 1951-54. Editor, Inqui/ab (Calcutta
weekly). Joined Socialist Labour League in India, 1991. Devoted the
last decade of his life to translating the works of Leon Trotsky into
Bengali.
Buoby, Fred (1915-1996)
Party pseudonym: M. Usman.

Born Birkenhead, England. Joined Workers International League in
Liverpool. Enlisted in Royal Air Force. Stationed in India with the 136
Repair and Salvage Unit. Worked with BLPI, 1945-47. Returned to
UK. Employed in the Post Office. Worked in the RCP and with Ted
Grant group in the 'fities. Retired to Worthing.
Chatterji, Haradhao (1922-1951)
Born Khardah (Barrackpore Sub-Division, District of North 24

Parganas, Bengal). Joined BLPI, 1943. Organized white-collar union
at Cox & Kings Ltd., 1945. Strike leader, Cox & Kings, 1946 and
1947. Member, Union Executive Committee, 1947. Union oirganizer,
Bum and Co. pottery works, Raniganj, 1947. General Secretary,
Titaghur Paper Mills Employees Union. President, Plassey Sugar
Workers Union. Attended BLPI conference, 1948. Entered Socialist
Party, 1948. Member, Working Committee, West Bengal Hind
Mazdoor Sabha.
Cooray, Liooel D.
Born Moratuwa, Ceylon. Joined LSSP and went to Madras, 1942.

Jailed, 1943-1945. Secretary, LSSP (Phi lip Gunawardena group),
1945-46. Co-editor, Samasamajist, 1945-50. Elected to Ceylon
Parliament, 1947. Left LSSP for VLLSP, 1953. Became private
secretary for P.H. William Silva when he became Minister in MEP
government, 1956.
256
Das, Sitanshu Mohan (1926-present)

Party pseudonym: Nazeem.
Bom Sylhet (Bengal), son of Surya Kumar Das. Joined the Bengal
Students Congress while still a teenager. Educated Calcutta University.
Member, Executive Committee, Bengal Students' Federation.
Arrested, 1942, at age of 16. Worked for a short time among the
Calcutta dock workers to assist a Congress trade unionist. Moved to
Jamalpur (Bihar) to avoid jail in Calcutta and participated in Quit India
protests. Jailed in Bihar, 1942-44. Joined BLPI and attended BLPI
conference, 1944. Delegate, BLPI conference, 1947. Withdrew from
Trotskyist politics, 1948. Studied Transport Economics at the London
School of Economics. Member, BBC Programme Advisory
Committee. Editorial board, Venture and Third World (Fabian Society
journals). Editor: The Times of India, The Tribune Trust, Patriot, and
Link. Professor of Journalism, Indian Institute of Mass
Communication. Author: The Future for Indian Democracy (1970),
Indian Nationalism: A Study in Evolution (1999), and Subhas: A
Political Biography (2001).
Drieberg, Trevor
Born Ceylon, to an illustrious Burgher family. Educated University of
Ceylon. Joined LSSP, 1939. Emigrated to Bombay, 1944,joined BLPI,
and worked at Stronach & Co. Left BLPI, 1946. Later joined
Congress. Author: Indira Gandhi: A Profile in Courage (1972),
Towards Closer Indo-Soviet Cooperation (1974), Four Faces of
Subversion (1975), Emergency in India (1975), Jammu and Kashmir:
A Tourist Guide (1978), and Agriculture in India (1980).
Durai Raj, P.V. (1915-?)
Joined BLPI during WWII. Secretary, BLPI Madras Unit. Entered
Socialist Party, 1948. Contested Madras State Assembly as CPI(M)
candidate in early 'seventies. Started Samadarma Illakiya Pannai in
Madura to publish works by Trotsky in Tamil.
257
Elayaperumal
Joined BLPI in Tuticorin during WWII. Leader of Tuticorin Mill

Workers Union. After Independence, remained an indepenent
Trotskyist trade union leader in Tuticorin.
Garbutt, Douglas
Joined Workers International League. Affiliated with the "Trotskyist

Opposition" faction. Enlisted in RAF and stationed in India, 1943-45.
Worked with the BLPI in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Left India in
August 1946.
Goonewardene, Cholomondoley (1917-present)
Born Kalutara, Ceylon, son of Muhandiram Arnold Goonewardene.

Educated Holy Cross, Kalutara, and St. Thomas College, Mt. Lavinia.
Joined LSSP, 1937. Member, Kalutara Urban Council, 1940-70.
Member of Parliament, 1947-52 and 1956-77. Minister of Public
Works, 1964-65. Deputy President, Sri Lanka Mahajana Party.
Goonewardene, Leslie Simon (1909-1983)
Party pseudonyms: Tilak, V.S. Parthasarathi.

Born Panadura, Ceylon, son of Dr. Andrew Simon Goonewardena.
Educated St. John's College, Panadura, St. Thomas' College, and a
public school in Wales. Earned B.Sc. in Economics, London School of
Economics. Read law at Gray's Inn; admitted to the bar, 1933.
Returned to Ceylon, 1933. Secretary, LSSP, 1935-77. Delegate to
Indian National Congress, Tripuri, 1939. Sent to Bombay, 1941.
Member Provisional Committee, BLPI, 1942. National Secretary,
BLPI, 1942-44; worked in BLPI groups in Bombay, Madras, and
Calcutta, 1941-46. BLPI Central Committee, 1944-47. Attended BLPI
conferences, 1947 and 1948. Editor, Bolshevik Leninist, 1942-43.
Editorial Board, New Spark, 1947-48. Alternate member, International
Executive Committee of FI, 1948. Member of Parliament, 1956-60.
Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, SLFP coalition government,
258
1970-75. Author: From the First to the Fourth International (1944),

The Rise and Fall of the Comintern (1947), The Differences Between
Trotskyism and Stalinism (1954), What We Stand For (1959), and
Short History of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (1960).
Goonewardene, Violet Vivienne ("Vivi") (1916-1996)
Party pseudonym: Ashok Kumari Tilak.
Born Colombo, Ceylon, daughter of Dr. Don Allenson Goonetilleke
and Emily Angeline Gunawardena, sister of Philip and Robert
Gunawardena. Educated Musaeus College, Colombo. Participated in
Suriya Mal movement. Worked on Straight Left. Joined LSSP.
Delegate to Indian National Congress, Tripuri, 1939. Married Leslie
Goonewardena, 1939. Sent to India, 1941; worked in BLPI groups in
Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, 1941-46. Author: "Rosa LuxemburgThe Legend and the Truth" (Permanent Revolution, vol. 1, no 3,
1943). Returned to Ceylon, 1946. Municipal Councilor, Colombo,
1949-54 and 1960-69. Member of Parliament, 1956-60, 1964-65,
1970-77. Junior Minister, SLFP-LSSP coalition government, 1973.
President, All Ceylon Local Government Workers Association.
Gunasekera, Vernon (1908-1996)
Born into a prominent family with links to the first Ceylonese
Governor General, Sir Oliver Goonetilleka. Educated in UK.
Secretary, WelIawatte Mills Union, 1932. General Secretary, LSSP,
1935-40. Editor, Young Socialist, monthly publication of Lanka
Students Socialist League, 1936. Editor, Samasamaja, 1937-40.
Contributed reports and articles to the Congress Socialist journal,
starting 1936. Affiliated with LSSP (Philip Gunawardena group),
1945-48. LSSP candidate for Ceylon Parliament, 1947. Joined
VLSSP (Philip Gunawardena group). Wrote a regular column for the
Sunday Observer. Later abandoned Marxist politics. Practiced law in
Kandy.
259
The Trotskyist Movement in India alld Ceyloll
Gunawardena, Kusumasiri (1912-1985)
Born Medaketiya (Tangalle), Ceylon, daughter of Don Davith

Amarasinghe. Educated Musaeus College, Colombo. Participated in
Suriya Mal movement. Joined LSSP. Married Philip Gunawardena,
1939. Attended Indian National Congress session, Ramgarh, 1940.
Escaped to India, 1942. Arrested in Bombay, 1943. Deported to
Ceylon, 1943. Member of Ceylon Parliament, 1948-60. Split from
LSSP, 1950. Central Committee, Viplavakari LSSP, 1950-59. Delegate
to Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, London, 1957.
Gunawardena, Don Philip Rupasinghe (1901-1972)
Party pseudonyms: Rup Singh, Almeida, Joseph.

Ceylon, son of Don Jacolis Rupasinghe Gunawardena. Educated
Prince of Wales College, Moratuwa; Ananda College, Colombo;
Ceylon University College; University of Illinois, University of
Wisconsin, and Columbia University. Participated in League Against
Imperialism, India League, and Communist Party of Great Britain,
1928-32. Founding leader, LSSP, 1935. Ceylon State Council, 193540. Jailed, 1940-42; escaped and fled to Bombay, 1942. Member,
Provisional Committee, BLPI, 1943. Arrested in Bombay, 1943.
Extradicted to Ceylon and imprisoned, 1944-45. Re-formed LSSP,
1945. Formed All-Ceylon Harbour and Dock Workers Union, 1946.
Elected to parliament, 1947~jai1ed during bus strike, 1947. Split from
LSSP, 1950; leader Viplavakari LSSP, 1950-59. Formed electoral front
with Communist Party, 1952. Minister of Agriculture, Food and
Cooperatives, Mahajana Eksath Peramuna government, 1956-58.
General Secretary, Central Council of Ceylon Trade Unions, 1957.
Drafted Paddy Lands Act, introduced the Co-Operative Bank (Peoples'
Bank), nationalized bus transport and the port, agitated for take-over
of British air force base at Katunayake and Naval Base at Trincomalee.
Leader, MEP, 1959-72. Minister of Industries and Fisheries, UNP
"Middle Path" government, 1965-70.
260
Gunawardena, Don Benjamin Rupasinghe ("Robert") (1904-1971)

Party pseudonyms: Vaidya, Prakash.
Ceylon, son of Don Jacolis Rupasinghe Gunawardena, younger
brother of Phi lip Gunawardena. Educated Ananda College, Colombo.
Activist in Colombo Youth League. Founding leader, LSSP, 1935.
Delegate to Indian National Congress, Haripura, 1938. Escaped to
India, 1942. Member, BLPI, Bombay and Madras. Arrested, 1943,
deported to Ceylon and imprisoned. Acting Secretary, LSSP, 1946-47.
Member of Parliament, 1947-65. Municipal Councillor, Colombo,
until 1956. Expelled from LSSP, 1960, for advocating united front
with Philip Gunawardena's MEP. Ambassador to the Peoples'
Republic of China, 1966-70. Author: Mage desapalana atdakima
[Story of My Political Life] (1971).
Gupta, Balkrishna (1910-1972)

Born Forbesganj (Bihar), son of Shambhu Dayal Gupta. Educated
C.A.Y. High School, Hissar, Scottish Churches, Presidency CoIIege,
Calcutta; and University College, London. Recruited to Trotskyism by
c.L.R. James. Returned to Calcutta at start of WWII; helped finance
BLPI. Editor, Jan. Governor, Khoj Parishad, a socio-economic
research institute. Member, Indian National Congress until 1948.
Joined Socialist Party (Lohia). MP, Rajya Sabha 1968-72.
Harvani, Ansarul Haq (1916-1996)

Born Rudauli (Barabanki District, UP), son of a petty landlord and
civil servant, brother of the revolutionary poet, Ansarul Haq Majaz.
Educated Aligarh Muslim University and Lucknow University.
Participated in founding the All India Students Federation, 1937. All
India Congress Committee, 1939. Attended Ramgarh session of
Congress, 1940. Participated in Quit India struggle. Jailed at Alipur
Jail in Calcutta and Lucknow Central Jail, 1942-45. President, AllIndia Youth League (youth wing of Forward Bloc), 1945, and General
Secretary, U.P. Provincial Forward Bloc. Later joined Congress in U.P.
261
Member, Lok Sabha, 1957-67; Estimates Committee, 1961-62. Chief

Reporter, The National Herald (Lucknow), and special representative,
Amrit Bazar Patrika (Calcutta). Author: Before Freedom and After:
Personal Recollections of One of the Key Witnesses of Indian Events
Over the Last Half a Century (New Delhi, 1989) and Gandhi to
Gandhi: Private Faces of Public Figures (New Delhi, 1996).
Jha, Jagadish (l923-?)
Joined BLPI in Calcutta after WWII. Organizer, Damkal Mazdur
Union (firefighters) and Cox & Kings Union, 1947. BLPI organizer in
Raniganj, 1947-48. Worked in Paper Mill Workers' Union. Formed oil
and colliery workers unions in Ranigunj. Entered Socialist Party, 1948.
Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Secretary, Bankura Distict (West Bengal)
Socialist Party, 1952. Worked as independent trade-unionist in 'fifties.
Organized village workers and farmers in Bankura from his base at
Pathardoba in 'sixties; led militant strike in 1970 and was victimized
by the United Front government of West Bengal.
Karahisingham, Vaithianathan ("Kario") (1921-83)
Party pseUdonyms: V.S. Roy, Sobhana Roy.
Born Jaffna, Ceylon, younger brother of V. Balasingham. Educated
Kalutara and Ananda College. Joined LSSP, 1937. Sent to India in
early 1942. Founding member, BLPI, 1942. Editor, Permanent
Revolution, 1943-45. Arrested in Bombay, March 1945. Secretary,
BLPI Ceylon Unit, 1945. Editorial Board, New Spark, 1947-48.
Delegate to BLPI conferences, 1944, 1947, 1948. Central Committee,
BLPI, 1947-48. Returned to Ceylon, 1951. Delegate to Third World
Congress of Fourth International, 1951. Studied law in UK, 1952-58;
called to the English Bar, 1957. Became Advocate of the Supreme
Court. Founding member, LSSP (Revolutionary), 1964. Editorial
Board, State, in the 1970s. Rejoined LSSP. Director, Air Ceylon during
SLFP coalition government, 1970-75. Author: The War in Korea
(1950), Politics of Coalition (1964), Czechoslovakia, 1968 (1968),
The Way Outfor the Tami! Speaking People (1963), and Enter History
(1970).
262
Karkal, Ramanath Pandurang ("Ramesh") (1926-2003)
Born Karkal (Karkala Taluk, Karnataka). Went to Bombay and joined

the freedom movement at age 15; participated in the Quit India
struggle. Jailed, 1942-45. Educated Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute
in Bombay. Joined BLP!. Bombay Unit Secretary, BLPI, 1947.
Published reprints of Trotsky's pamphlets. Entered Socialist Party,
1948. Contributed to SP publications. Formed Modern India
publications to reprint numerous works by Trotsky in the early 1950s.
Supported the Trotskyist movement until his death.
Khan, Zahrul Hasan
Joined BLPI in Calcutta. Formed Damka1 Mazdur Union (firefighters).

Organizer, Titaghur Jute Factory Utlion, Titaghur, and Bum and Co.
pottery workers union, Raniganj, 1947. Executive Committee,
Workers United Front, 1947. President, Ranigunj Paper Mill Workers'
Union, 1948. Vice President, Bengal Provincial Trade U n10n
Congress. Attended BLPI conference, 1948. Entered Socialist Party,
1948. Elected to Hind Mazdoor Sabha. Became independent trade
unionist after 1952 elections.
Kodial, Raghuvir
Party pseudonym: Kabir.

Joined BLPI in Bombay during the war. Worked at the All India
General Insurance Company, Ltd. in Fort, Bombay.
Koley, Satyen
Educated Presidency College, Calcutta. Joined BLP!. Active in All

Bengal Students' Congress, the Bengal Student Federation, and
Chhatra Sangram Parishad [Students' War Council], 1947. Arrested
for protesting "Black Bill," 1947. Vice President, Paschim Banga
Patrika and Press Workers Union, 1948. Editor, Ir..quilab, 1947-48.
263
Koipe, Sitaram B. (1919-2002)
Party pseudonym: Kailash Chandra

Founding member, Mazdoor Trotskyist Party, 1942. Jailed, 1942;
escaped and absconded, 1943-44. Arrested in connection with a
sabotage case, March 1944. General Secretary, MTP, 1947. General
Secretary, Indian Vegetable Products Workers Union, 1948. Journalist
and acting editor, Free Press Journal, 1948-1976. Co-editor, Socialist,
1948. Editor, New Perspectives and Clarity. Chairman, Bombay Union
of Journalists; President, Maharashtra Union of Working Journalists;
Secretary General, Indian Federation of Working Journalists (196471); President, IFWJ, 1971. Central Committee, Revolutionary
Communist Party of India, 1960. Elected to IEC of Fourth
International. Member, Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party.
Author: The Kennedy Asassination. (1964), Bhopal, from Hiroshima
to Eternity (1985), Ramnath Goenka, a Fraud on Indian Press,
Politics, and People (1987), and Manu to Ambedkar (1994).
Kotelawaia, J.C.T. ("Jack") (d. 1991)
Born Hindagoda (Badulla District, Uva), Ceylon, son of James

Kotelawala, the brother of Sir Henry Kotelawala. Educated Trinity
College, Kandy, and Law College, Colombo. Recruited to Youth
League by Terence de Zylva. Participated Suriya Mal movement in
Kandy. Founding member, LSSP, 1935. Joint Secretary and Member
of Executive Committee, LSSP, 1935-40. General Secretary, LSSP,
1940-42. Vice President, All-Ceylon Estate Workers Union. Jailed in
Kandy and Badulla, 1942-45. Member of Parliament, 1947-60.
Organized bus workers of Uva. Left LSSP, 1969. Ambassador to
USSR, 1965-70. Chairman, Ceylon Transport Board. Author:
"Amataka Novana Satahan" [Memorable Events], in Samasamaja
Jayanthi Kalapaya [Samasamaja Jubilee Issue] (1960).
Mandekar, Anant Mahadeo
Party pseudonym: Ajit.

Drawn into politics while a high school student during the Quit India
movement. Arrested, 1943; released and arrested again, March 1944;
264
jailed 1944-45. Joined Bolshevik Mazdoor Party. Arrested Bombay,

1945. Joined BLPI, 1946. Strike leader, New Kaiser-i-Hind Mills,
Bombay, 1947. Contested 1948 Bombay Municipal Corporation
elections as BLPI candidate. Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Delegate to
SP Convention, 1950. Joined Revolutionary Communist Party ofIndia
in early 'fifties. Active in Ooni Mazdoor Union (woolen workers),
Bombay, in the 'sixties.
Mendis, J. AlIan
Born Ceylon. Joined LSSP. Worked at Whittall & Co. in Colombo;
active in Mercantile Employees Union. Member, BLPI, Madras, 194445. Arrested in Madras, sentenced to two years Rigorous
Imprisonment, and deported to Ceylon, 1945. Active in LSSP until
his death.
Mishra, Hiranand
Joined BLPI in Calcutta. Editor, Spark, 1946. Delegate, BLPI
conferences, 1947 and 1948. Central Committee, BLPI, 1947-48.
Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Bengal Executive Committee, SP.
Played leading role in Trotskyist groups in 'fifties. Central Committee,
Revolutionary Communist Party of India, 1960. Author: Stalinism.
What it Means (1956) and East European Crisis of Stalinism (1957).
Mitra, Chitta (1929-76)
Participated in Quit India movement while still a teeanger. Joined
BLPI after WWII. Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Joined SP (Loyalists),
1952. Arrested for activities with the Sanyukta Durbhiksha Pratirodh
[United Famine Resistance Committee], 1953. Joined Samyukta
Socialist Party. Joined Socialist Workers Party, 1968. Editor, Vishwa
Biplab [World Revolution] and the fortnightly Socialist Karmi.
Translated and published Trotsky's writings in Bengali. Author: A
Notebook of Socialism (ca. 1967), Bartoman Communist lstahar
(1970), translated as World Revolutionary Leon Trotsky (1971), and
Kamyunist Antarashtriya ki Kahani [Story of the Communist
International] (1970).
265
More, Prabhakar (1934-present)

Joined radical student movement in Bombay while still a teenager.
Came in contact with BLPI in 1948. Trade unionist, Mumbai Girni
Kamgar Union, Bombay; worked in India United Group of Mills.
Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Member, Bombay Municipal
Corporation. Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Became leader of Hind
Mazdoor Kisan Panchayat. Interviewed by Meena Menon and Neera
Adarkar for their book, One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The
Millworkers ofGirangaon, An Oral History (2004).
Mukherji, Basanta Dev
Joined Calcutta Trotskyist circle 1937. Founding member BLPI, 1942.
Worked in Varanasi, 1942-45. Attended BLPI conference, 1948.
Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Leader, Communist League, in the
'fifties and 'sixties. Central Secretariat, Revolutionary Workers Party,
1958-60. Elected to IEC of Fourth International. Central Committee,
Revolutionary Communist Party ofIndia, 1960.
Muthiah, Bodi M. (1914-?)
Party pseudonym: Manickam
Born in small village mear Bodi (Theni District, Tamil Nadu), son of a
poor peasant. Educated by Christian missionaries. Joined Congress
and later the Communist Party. Jailed for a year. Joined BLPI, Madras,
1943. Organizer, MSM Railway workshops, Perambur, 1944-45.
Arrested in Madras, 1945. Strike leader, Madras Labour Union, 1947;
jailed under Congress Ministry. Entered Socialist Party, 1948.
Pal ani Velayutham, G.
Born Salem (Salem District, Tamil Nadu). Worked as a teacher in
Salem and became sympathetic to CPI. Moved to Madras, met S.C.C.
Anthony Pillai, recruited to BLPI, and made General Secretary of
Spencer Workers Union. Secretary, Madras BLPI, 1947. Delegate,
Special Convention BLPI, 1948. Later returned to Salem for reasons
of economic hardship and resumed teaching.
266
Parija, Murlidhar
Party pseudonym: V. Markandu (?).
Joined Purdy group in Bombay before WWII. Founding member,
Mazdoor Trotskyist Party, 1942. Arrested for dacoity during WWII.
President, Bombay Committee of MTP, 1948. Trade unionist, Ravi
Uday Litho Workers Union, Bombay State Electrical Employees
Union, Engineering Workers Union, Bombay and Suburban Reshim
Kamgar Union (silk workers), and Bombay Textile Labour Union.
Founding member and Joint Secretary, Bombay State Committee,
United Trades Union Congress. Co-editor, Socialist, 1948. Editor, The
Militant, 1959-60; Marxist Outlook, 1966-70. General Secretary,
Revolutionary Workers Party, 1958-60. Activist, Pragatshil Yuvak
Mandal, Ahmedabad, 1959-60.
Peiris, Henry (?- 1959)

Became active in left movement in Ceylon in 1920s under influence
of A.E. Goonesinghe. Founding member LSSP, 1935. Editor,
Samasamajaya, 1936-1940. Elected to parliament, 1947. Delegate to
BLPI convention, 1948. Split from LSSP, '1953, and eventually joined
the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Worked for the Lake House newspapers.
Deputy Editor, Dinamina.
Perera, K.V. Lorenz

Born Kalubowila, Ceylon. Attended Ceylon University College.
Secretary, -LSSP, 1940-42. Arrested late 1942; jailed at Bogambara,
1943-45. Member, BLPI (Ceylon Unit), 1945-50. Earned medical
degree. Candidate, Ceylon parliamentary elections, 1947. Practised
medicine in Wennappuwa.
Perera, Nanayakkarapathirage Martin (1905-1979)

Party pseudonyms: A. Deshmukh and Oliver.
Born Thotalanga, Ceylon, son of Nanayakkarapathirage Abraham
Perera. Educated St. Joseph's College, Modera; St. Thomas' College,
Mt. Lavinia; Ananda College, C;olombo; Ceylon University College,
267
The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylol/
and University of London. Joined India League. Founding leader,

LSSP, 1935. Member of Ceylon State Council, 1936-40. Arrested
1940, incarcerated at Wellikade Jail and Bogambara Prison. Escaped
to Bombay, July 1942. Arrested in Bombay, July 1943. Jailed 'at
Badulla, 1943-45. Member of Parliament, 1947-78. President, Ceylon
Federation of Labour. Colombo Municipal Council, 1950-56. Mayor
of Colombo, 1954-56. Minister of Finance, SLFP coalition
governments, 1964-65 and 1970-75. Author: Parliamentary
Democracy (1931), The Case for Free Education (1944), External
Economic Assistance (1964), The Economy of Ceylon: Trends and
Prospects (1971), and Critical Analysis of the New Constitution of the
Sri Lanka Government (1979).
Perera, Arthur Reginald ("Reggie") (1915-1977)

Party pseudonym: Regpee (?).
Born Karawanella (Ruwanwella Kegalle district), Ceylon. Educated
St. John's College, Panadura. Owned and operated a plantation. Joined
LSSP Youth League and participated in malaria relief work in KegalIa
district. Founding member, LSSP, 1935. Delegate, Indian National
Congress, 1937. Arrested, 1940, and jailed at Bogambara and BadulIa,
1942-45. Trade union leader, AII Ceylon Estate Workers Union.
Member of Parliament, 1947-52. Split from LSSP and joined VLSSP,
1953. Member Senate and Upper House, 1959-72. Chief Government
Whip, 1970-72. Founder, Sandella, an International Cultural Center.
Author: Journey into Politics (1962) and Sadol Kandulu [Tears of the
Outcasts], 1967. Ambassador to Egypt, 1971.
Perera, Margaret Selina ("Sheela") (1909-1986)

Born BadulIa, Ceylon, daughter of prominent Peiris family. Educated
Musaeus College, Colombo, and London University. Participated in
Suriya Mal movement. Founding member, LSSP, 1935. Married N.M.
Perera after 1936 elections. Returned to UK in 1938, worked with
Trotskyists. Visited Socialist Workers Party in New York, 1939.
Attempted to visit Trotsky in Mexico. Returned to Ceylon, 1940.
Strike leader, Elephant cigarette company, 1942. Escaped to India,
268
1942, worked in BLPI groups in Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, 194248. Attended BLPI conference, 1944. Entered SP, 1948. Member,
Bengal Executive Committee of SP. Founding leader, SP (Loyalists),
1952. Provisional Central Committee, Mazdoor Kisan Party, 1955.
Central Secretariat, Revolutionary Workers Party, 1958-60. Joined
Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Purdy, Murray Gow (aka Purdy-Singb)

Party pseudonyms: Yarumji Eedrupji, Comrade No. 1.
Born in South Africa, son of American immigrants. Recruited by
Frank Glass, 1930. Founder, Bolshevik Leninist League of South
Africa, 1934. Went to Bombay via Addis Abbaba (Ethiopia), 1936.
Joined Indian National Congress. Founder, Friends ofTrotsky Society,
1938. Founding leader, Mazdoor Trotskyist Party, 1942. Jailed in
Bombay, 1944-47. Expelled from India, December 1947, and went to
London. Dropped out of Trotskyist movement, 1949, and perhaps
returned to South Africa. Author: Bolshevik-Leninist-Trotskyist Draft
Provisional Programme (1938), Lenin s Last Testament (1940), Marx
and Engels Communist Manifesto (1942), Hindi mazdur tratskist part
- Karyakram [Program of the Workers Trotskyist Party of India]
(1943), Constituent Assembly: Is it Possible in India? And its
Alternative. A Marxist-Trotskyist Analysis (n.d.), The South African
Indian Problem-A Revolutionary Solution (1943).
Purobit, Vinayak (1927-present)

Party pseudonyms: Amar, Pankaj.
Born' Calcutta. Left school to participate in the Quit India revolt.
Educated Bombay University. Joined BLPI, 1942. Arrested July 1943
and jailed for 7 months. Delegate to BLPI conference, 1944. Entered
Socialist Party, 1948. General Secretary, Bombay Press Employees
Union. Contributor, Socialist Vanguard, Socialist Appeal and
Mankind, 1956-67. Executive Editor, Mankind, 1995-2000. Music
critic, Times of India, 1956. Journalist, Nirvan. Visiting professor:
Panjab University, Chandigarh, 1980-82; Chalmers Institute of
Technology, Gothenberg, and Royal Institute of Technology,
269
Stockholm, 1981; University of the Philippines, Manilla, 1984; and

Film and Television Institute of India, 1976-86. Author: Steel Frame
(1981), Chauraha (1990), Amina Ane Teno Jamano, Byalis (1990),
Parodh Pahelano Andhakar, The Press and the People (1972), Arts of
Transitional India: Twentieth Century (1986/88), Sociology ofArt and
Politics (1987-89), Some Aspects of Sociology of Indian Films and
Profile of the Hindi Hit Movie: 1951-1989 (1990).
Rajan, Sundarh
Party pseudonum: Somu
Joined BLPI in Madura during WWII. Delegate from Madura to first\
party convention, 1944.Dropped out of BLPI after the war.
Ramaswamy, B.M.K. (1914-1995)
Born in Ceylon. Joined LSSP before the war. Sent to Madura along
with his older brother, Shanmuganathan, 1941. Developed links with
important radical Congressmen. Founding member ofBLPI, Madura,
1942. Went underground during Quit India revolt and worked with
T.G. Krishnamurthy and other radical Congressmen. Formed unions in
Harvey Cotton Mills and Mahalakshmi Mills, Madura. Arrested and
jailed at Alipuram, 1945. Strike leader, Madras Labour Union, 1947.
Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Returned to Ceylon, 1953, taught
Sinhalese, and wrote novels. Returned to India and settled in
Kottivakkam, 1986. Formed Samadharma Ilakkiya Pannai [Socialist
Publishing Society], Madura. Author: Tiratski vaazhkkai varalaaru:
oru thiranaayvu (1989-90).
Rao, M. Madhava
Born Nellore (Andhra Pradesh). Educated Stanley Medical College,
Madras. Joined BLPI while still a student. Leader, All India Student
Federation in Madras. Took active role in B&C Mills strike, Madras,
1947. Editor, BLPI Tamil newspaper, Porattam [Struggle], 1948.
Delegate to BLPI conference, 1948. Entered Socialist Party, 1948.
Joint Secretary, Andhra Provincial SP. Wrote for Socialist Vanguard,
270
1951-52. Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Provisional Central Committee,

Mazdoor Kisan Party, 1955. Author: Andhra Rashtrabivruddhiki em
sheyyali (1953).
Rao, B. MallikArjun (c. 1920-1966)

Born in Guntur District (Andhra Pradesh). Educated Sydenham
College, Bombay. Assistant Secretary, Girni Kamgar Union.
Journalist, Free Press Journal and Chronicle. Joined Workers Group
led by M.G. Purdy, 1941. Founding member, Mazdoor Trotskyist
Party, 1942. Returned to Hyderabad; during Quit India revolt led
militant strikes in the Nizam State Railway, 1942-43. Jailed, 1944-46.
Leader, squatters' movement in Bombay, 1945. President, MTP, 1947.
Participated in the movement against the Nizam of Hyderabad in
Sholapur, 1947-48. Secretary and Vice President, Central Railway
Mazdoor Union (Secundarabad). Vice President, United Trade Union
CongresS', 1949. Visited Peoples' Republic of China, 1952. Provisional
Central Committee, Mazdoor Kisan Party, 1955. Elected to
Secundarabad Municipal Corporation. Chairman, Joint Action
Committee of Central Government employees in Andhra, 1959.
Central Committee, Revolutionary Communist Party of India, 1960.
Author: Indian Peasants Problem.
Rao, T.R.
Joined BLPI in Bombay after the war. Joined Socialist Party, 1948.
Started Modern India Publications and published numerous works by
Trotsky and other Marxists in the 'fifties and 'sixties.
Roy, Ajit Kumar Mukherji

Born Bengal. Went to Britain in 1931 to study law and qualify for the
ICS. Joined Labour Party, then League Against Imperialism and
CPGB. Co-founded the Marxist Group along with C.L.R. James,
1935. Returned to India, 1937-38. Return to UK and formed
Revolutionary Socialist League with C.L.R. James. Editorial Board,
Fight and later Workers' Fight. Founding leader, Workers International
The Trotskyist Movement in India alld Ceylol!
League. Trade unionist, Amalgamated Engineering Union at de

Havilland Company's aircraft factory. Central Committee,
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain, 1944-47. Delegate to FI
Congress, Brussels, 1946. Returned to India, 1947. Practiced law in
Calcutta. Delegate, BLPI conferences, 1948. Central Committee,
BLPI, 1948. Entered Socialist Party, 1948. National Executive
Committee, SP, 1948-50. Joined Praja Socialist Party, 1952. Withdrew
from active politics shortly later. Worked as a lawyer in Calcutta
thereafter.
Roy, Karuna Kant (?-1991)
Party pseudonym: Ranadhir.
Born in Sylhet (Bengal). Educated Calcutta and Kashi Vidyapith,
Benares. Joined the Civil Disobedience movement, 1930 while still a
student and was beated by the police and jailed. Joined Bolshevik
Leninist Party of United Provinces and Bihar, 1939. Editor, Awaz [The
Voice], 1940. Founding member, BLPI, 1942. Arrested in Benares
during Quit India revolt, 1942. Moved to Bombay, 1943. After
Independence, became a trade unionist, West Bengal Khadi and
Village Industries Commission, Calcutta.
Roy, Purnangshu K. ("Nitai")
Educated Calcutta. Joined BLPI, 1942. belegate, BLPI conferences,
1947 and 1948. Leader of "anti -entry" faction. Entered Socialist Party,
1948. Withdrew from active politics after 1952 elections. Went to UK
and became a physicist. Developed ankylosing spondilitis, a
debilitating and painful form of rheumatoid arthritis, and died
sometime in the mid 'eighties.
Satchithanandam, Vallipuram (?-1977)
Born Ceylon, younger brother of Sittampalam Satchithanandam, a

founding member of the LSSP. Educated London University. Joined
London Marxist Group, 1936. Called to the bar, Lincoln's Inn,
London. Returned to Ceylon and joined BLPI. Delegate, BLPI
272
Conference, 1948. Commissioner, National Savings Movement until

1969.
Samarakkody, Edmund (1914-1992)
Born Siyane Korale, Ceylon, younger brother of Siripala
Samarakkody, the future president of Ceylon National Congress, and
nephew of D.S. Senanayake. Educated St. Thomas' College, Mt.
Lavinia, and Law College. Joined LSSP, 1936. Delegate to Indian
National Congress, Haripura, 1938. Strike leader, Vavasseur Coconut
Mill and the Colombo Commercial Company Fertiliser Works. Jailed,
1940. Escaped 1942. Jailed, 1942-45. Member, BLPI (Ceylon Unit),
1945-50. Contested parliamentary elections~ 1947. Member of
Parliament, 1956-60. Founding member, LSSP (Revolutionary), 1964.
Founder, Revolutionary Sama Samaja Party/Revolutionary Workers
Party, 1968. Author: The Crisis ofLocal Government (1954), Workers'
Councils, Janata Committees, and Socialist Transformation (1970),
Vamanshika Peramuna? (1978), Whither United Socialist Alliance?
(1988), and Eksat Samajavadi Peramuna .' koybata da? (1988).
Sastry, Vellala Srikantaya Sesbagiri (1912-?)
Party pseudonym: M. Naidu.
Born Rajampet (Andhra Pradesh), son ofV.R. Srikantaya. Went to UK
in 1936 to train as a journalist. Joined India League, 1936. Joined
Communist Party of Great Britain in Birmingham. Secretary, Indian
Workers Union (Association), 1943. Central Committee,
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain, 1944-46. Returned to
India, 1946, and joined BLPI in Bombay. Editor, New Spark, 1947.
Attended BLPI conference, 1947; elected to Central Committee and
Political Bureau. Entered Socialist Party, 1948. Returned to Cuddapah
and ran a Tutorial Institute.
Selvarajatnan, Govindaswami (1924-1995)
Educated Presidency College, Madras. Student leader, All India
Student Federation in Madras. Member, Madras Congress Committee.
273
Joined BLPI during war. Delegate, All India Students' Congress, 1945.
Delegate to BLPI conferences, 1947 and 1948. Entered Socialist Party,
1948. Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Moved to UK. Author: The
Meaning o/the Simla Surrender (1945).
Sen', Indra Datta (d. circa 1990)
Party pseudonyms: D. Gupta, D. Dutt, Suresh.
Born Faridpur District (Bengal). Educated Calcutta University. Joined
Students' Radical Party in Calcutta in late 'thirties. Founding member,
Revolutionary Socialist League of Bengal, 1940. Put under house
arrest, 1941. Founding leader, BLPI, 1942. Delegate to BLPI
conference 1944. Worked in BLPI groups in Calcutta, Bombay,
Madras, 1942-48. Central Committee, BLPI, 1944-48. Editor, New
Spark, 1947. Executive Committee, Workers United Front, 1947.
Attended BLPI conferences, 1947 and 1948. General Secretary, BLPI.
Delegate to Special Convention of BLPI, October 1948. Entered
Socialist Party, 1948. Joint editor, Janata, 1948-50. Member, SP
Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee. Editorial Board, Socialist Appeal.
Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Joined SP (Lohia), 1956. Staff journalist,
Hindusthan Standard. Author: The Road to Peace (1951) and
Communist Policy Today (1952). Helped publish other Trotskyist
publications in 'sixties and 'seventies. Went blind in his final years.
Senanayake, Reginald S. Vincent ("Reggie") (1898-1946)
Born Colombo, Ceylon. Married Daisy Maria Florence Mendis (190399), 1925. Participated with her in Youth League, 1934-35. Founding
member LSSP, 1935. Treasurer, LSSP, 1935-39. Escaped to India,
1942. Member of BLPI, Bombay and Madras, 1942-43. Arrested in
Madras, July 1943, and sent back to Ceylon.
Sethuraman
Educated Madras University. Joined Congress in Madras and worked
as a clerk in the Labour Section of the Congress Committee. Joined
BLPI. Became full-time worker for Madras Labour Union. Active in
274
B&C Mills strike, 1947. Delegate, BLPJ conference, 1948. Later went
to Dindigul (Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu) for employment and left
politics.
Shastri, Onkarnath Verma (1908-c.2000)
Party pseudonym: Sharma.

Born Allahabad, the son of Lalta Prasad. Educated Kashi Vidyapith,
Benares. Joined the Civil Disobedience movement and jailed in 1932.
Became a Socialist. Leader, Kashi Vidyapith party. Member,
Communist Party, 1935-36. Editor, Samaj, 1937-38. Formed
Bolshevik-Leninist Party of the United Provinces and Bihar, 1939.
Attended clandestine conference of Ceylonese and Indian Trotskyists
in Ceylon, 1941. Founding leader, BLPI, 1942. Jailed, 1942-45. Broke
with BLPI, 1945. Joined Bolshevik Mazdoor Party, 1946. General
Secretary, Mazdoor Trotskyist Party, 1947. Formed Revolutionary
Workers Party, 1948. Editor, Jivan. Joined Congress, 1953. Supported
Indira Gandhi during the "Emergency" in the 'seventies.
Shukla, Chandravadan Pranjivan (1910-2000)
Party pseudonyms: Rafiq, Ramesh Munshi, Sidney, Brelvi.

Born in the Princely State of Lunawada (Gujarat). Educated
Ahmedabad. Student leader, Ahmedabad Vidyarthi Mitramandal.
Joined CPI, 1936. Secretary, Mill Kamgar Union, Ahmedabad. Quit
CPI, 1938. Formed Bolshevik Mazdoor Party, 1940. Founding leader,
BLPI, 1942. Editor, Bolshevik Leninist, 1942-46. Split from BLPI,
1943, and functioned as Bolshevik Mazdoor Party. Editor, Jagat
Kranti. Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Provisional Central Committee,
Mazdoor Kisan Party, 1955. Author: Ninth August Betrayed (1949)
and Socialistic Pattern? (1955). Wrote for Socialist Appeal, 1953.
Retired from left politics in 1954-55. Editor, Virat Jage.
de Silva, Colvin Reginald (1907-1989)
Party pseudonyms: C.R. Govindan, Lily Roy, Dias (Diaz).

Born Balapitiya, Ceylon. Educated St. John's College, Panadura,
Royal College, Colombo, and King's College, University of London.
275
Studied law at Lincoln's Inn. Secretary, Ceylon Students Association

in London, 1926. Visited the USSR, 1931. President, Wellawatte Mills
Union, 1932. Founding leader, LSSP, 1935. President of LSSP, 193539. Jailed 1940; escaped and went to Bombay, 1942. Worked in BLPI
groups in Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, 1942-45. Attended BLPI
conference, 1944. Central Committee, BLPI, 1944-47; and General
Secretary, BLPI. Delegate to BLPI conference, 1947; attended BLPI
conferences, 1948. Member ofCeylon Parliament, 1947-52 and 195660. International Executive Committee, Fourth International, 1948.
Minister of Constitutional Affairs, SLFP coalition government, 197075. Author: Ceylon Under the British Occupation, 1795-1833 (1942),
Socialism Reaffirmed (1944), The Why and the Wherefore (1952),
Hartal! (1953), Outline of the Permanent Revolution: A Study Course
(1955), Their Politics - And Ours (1954), Lessons of the Local
Government Elections (1955), The Failure of Communalist Politics
(1958), Fifty Years of Public Life (1982), and Party and Revolution
(1974).
de Silva, Susan (Caldera)
Born Ceylon. Joined the Youth Leagues. Activist in Suriya Mal

movement. Founding member, LSSP, 1935. Married LSSP member
George Caldera. Attended the Indian National Congress session,
Tripuri, 1939. During WWII worked in the underground with RW.
Amaradasa Fernando. Became pro-Stalinist, 1948. Later withdrew
from politics and lived on her family'S plantation.
de Silva, P.H. William (1908-1988)
Party pseudonym: Karunatatna.

Born Batapola (Ambalangoda), Ceylon, son of a wealthy professional
and land-owning family. Educated St. John's College, Panadura, and
University College, Oxford. Joined India League and the London
Marxist group. Returned to Ceylon and joined LSSP. Jailed at
Bogambara and Badulla, 1942-45. Member of Parliament, 1947 and
1953. Leader, All Ceylon Estate Workers Union. Split from LSSP,
1953. Member Central Committee, VLSSP, 1956. Founding leader,
276
Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP). Minister of Industries and

Fisheries, SLFP-MEP coalition government, 1956-59. Member of
Parliament, 1960. Vice President, SLFP. High Commissioner to
Canada, 1970.
Siriwardena, Coddipiliarachchi Don Reginald ("Regi")
(1922-2004)
Party pseudonym: Hamid.
Educated St. Thomas College, Mount Lavinia; Ananda College,
Colombo; and Ceylon University College. Joined LSSP, 1939. Left
party in 1946. Journalist, Ceylon Daily News until early 1960s. Senior
English Teacher, Royal College, Colombo. Founder, English
Department, Vidyalankara College, Kelaniya. Writer, poet, and
playwright. Wrote screen plays for the award-winning film,
Gamperaliya, and Golu Hadawata. Founded Civil Rights Movement
after the 1971 JVP insurrection. Editor, Nethra. Author: The End of a
Golden String (1989), Addressing the Other (1992), Poems and
Selected Translations (1993), Octet: Collected Plays (1995), The Lost
Lenore (1996), Among My Souvenirs (1997), Working Underground:
The LSSP in Wartime (1999), The Pure Water of Poetry (1999), and
The Protean Life of Language: Four Studies (2001).
Soysa, Bernard (1914-1997)
Born Colombo, Ceylon. Educated Ananda College and Ceylon
University College, Colombo. Active in Suriya Mal campaign, 1933.
Joined LSSP, 1937. Executive Committee, LSSP, 1937-40. Journalist,
The Times. Founding member, BLPI, 1942. Arrested Bombay, 1943;
deported and detained in Ceylon, 1943-44. Secretary, BLPI (Ceylon
Unit). Published several pamphlets by Trotsky, 1949-50. Municipal
Councilor, Colombo, 1949-56. Member of Parliament, 1956-60, 1970,
and 1994. Chairman, Public Accounts Committee of Parliament,
1964-77. Finance Minister, 1970-77. General Secretary of LSSP,
1970-93. Cabinet Minister for Science, Technology and Human
Resources Development in People's Alliance Government.
277
de Souza, Anthony Theodoric Armand ("Doric") (1914-1987)

Party pseudonyms: Morera (Moreira), S. Livera.
Born Colombo, Ceylon, son of Armand de Souza, the editor of the
nationalist newspaper, Ceylon Morning Leader, and founder ofCeylon
National Congress. Educated St. Joseph's College, Colombo. Went to
UK. Returned 1937, appointed lecturer in English, and joined LSSP.
Attended BLPI conference 1944; elected to Central Committee.
Leader, BLPI, Bombay, 1944-45. Arrested and jailed, 1945. Colombo
Municipal Councilor, 1946-52. Delegate, BLPI conference, 1947.
Senator, 1957-1969. Lecturer, University of Ceylon. Associate
Professor, Kelaniya University, 1970-1982. Permanent Secretary to
Ministry, SLFP coalition government, 1970-75. Author: China 19251950: Revolution, Counter-Revolution, Imperialist and Civil War
(1950), The Agrarian Economy of India (unpublished).
Udyawar, S.P.
Joined Royist group in Bombay; worked on trade-union front.
Opposed support to WWII. Recruited to BLPI, 1942-43. After war
involved in BLPI's publishing efforts; published Rise and Fall of the
Comintern by Leslie Goonewardene. Left BLPI in 1948.
Wickremasinghe, Cyril Esmond Lucien (1920-1985)
Party pseudonym: Buultjens.
Educated Ceylon University College and Ceylon Law Collge,
Hulftsdorp. Joined LSSP while a student. President, University
Students' Union. Qualified as advocate, 1946. Quit LSSP, 1947.
Married the daughter of Lake House baron Don Richard Wijewardene.
Named Managing Director, Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.,
1950. Chairman, International Press Foundation, 1966-68.
Zuberi, Umar Abid
Joined BLPI in Calcutta after WWII. Secretary, All Bengal Muslim
Students League, 1946. Went to Pakistan after Partition. Started a
Trotskyist journal, Spark, in Karachi, for the Democratic Youth
278
League, which had been founded in Dhaka in August, 1947, to resist

the imposition ofUrdu as the sole state language.
de Zylva, Terrence N. (1887-1960)
Educated Wesley College, Colombo, 1911-15. School master, Prince

of Wales, Wesley College, Zahira, and Sri Sumangala. Established
Kolonnawa Vidyala (now named the Terrence de Zilva School). Active
in Suriya Mal campaign, 1933-35. Founding member LSSP, 1935.
Jailed during WWII. Councillor, Kolonnawa Urban Council.
APPENDIX B
Program of the Bolshevik-Leninist

Party of India (1942)
Author s Note: The founding meeting of the BLPI, convened
clandestinely in Bombay in May, 1942, adopted the "Draft Programme
of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India." The BLPI published this
document as a pamphlet in 1942. I The following text has been
transcribed from that pamphlet. The Draft Programme was ratified,
with minor changes, at the First Representative Conference of the BLPI
held in 1944.
SECTION 1. THE BRITISH CONQUEST AND EXPLOITATION OF
INDIA
India, the largest, the longest dominated and exploited of British

conquests, the richest field of investment, the source of incalculable
plunder and profit, the base of Asiatic expansion, the inexhaustible
reservoir of material and human resources for British wars, the focus
of all British strategic aims, the pivot of the Empire, and the bulwark of
British world domination, offers, after 200 years of subjection, the
most complete demonstration of the working and results of the colonial
system of modern imperialism.
Every European colonizing power directed its first efforts towards
India, and the bitterest struggles for the glittering prize were fought on
the battlefields of Europe and India alike. The success of Britain in
defeating her continental rivals as well as the native rulers ofIndia, and
the consolidation of her domination in India paved the way for her
subsequent world supremacy. The conquest and exploitation of India
was one of the main bases of capitalist development in Britain, giving
Draft Programme of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India. Indian Section of the

Fourth International, 1942. Hull.
280
direct support to her social and political structure. The plunder of India
was a main source of the primitive accumulation of capital which made
possible the English Industrial Revolution. The exploitation of the
Indian market and of Indian raw materials provided the basis of British
industrial expansion in the 19th century. Today India provides a field
of investment for a quarter of the British overseas capital holdings, and
sends to Britain roughly 150 million annually, as tribute, in various
forms.
After 200 years of Imperialist rule, India presents a picture of
poverty and misery of the masses, which is without equal in the
world-the more striking because up to the 18th century the economic
condition of India was relatively advanced and Indian methods of
production and of industrial and commercial organizations could
compare with those of any part of the world, and because of the vast
natural wealth and resources of the country, which cannot be utilized
and developed under the system of imperialism.
European capitalist penetration ofIndia began with the Portuguese
establishment of their factory in Calicut. The British (1600), the Dutch
(1602), and the French (1664), formed their trading companies in the
course of the 17th century. The British conquest of India, carried out
piecemeal, and in the most ruthless, vindictive and deceitful manner,
differed from every previous conquest of India in that, whereas earlier
foreign conquerors had left untouched the traditional economy, British
Imperialism "broke down the whole framework of Indian society." 2
The first steps of this destruction were carried out by (a) the colossal
This quote, and the others that follow, is from Karl Marx, "The British Rule in
India," an article originally published in The New York Tribune (25 June 1853).
These articles slipped into obscurity. David Riazanov, the director of the MarxEngels Institute, combed through old issues of the New York Tribune and found
this and other articles that Marx had written on India and China. In 1925 he
published several of these articles, including "The British Rule in India," in Unter
dem Banner des Marxismus. R. Palme Dutt translated the article back into English
and published it in Labour Monthly (December, 1925). Dutt quoted from this and
the other long-lost Marx articles in his two books on India, Modern India (1926)
and India Today (1940). The BLPI very likely got these quotes from India Today.
281
The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceyloll
direct plunder by the East India Company; (b) the British neglect of
irrigation and public works; (c) the wrecking of the Indian land system
and its replacement by a system of landlordism and individual land
holding; (d) the direct prohibition of and heavy duties on the export of
Indian manufactures to Europe, and to England ..
But it was the operations of 19th century British industrial
capitalism and the governmental policies initiated by it in India that
decisively broke up the Indian economic structure. The industrial
capitalists of Britain had a clear-cut aim in India-to reduce it to an
agricultural colony of British capitalism, supplying raw materials and
absorbing manufactured goods. Britain captured and developed the
market for her industrial goods on the basis of the technical superiority
of English machine industry (for which the plunder of India had
provided the accumulated capital), while at the same time utilizing the
state power to block the export ofIndian goods to Europe and to permit
the free entry of British goods to India. The destruction and collapse of
Indian manufactures in this unequal struggle against British
competition, was the inevitable result. The ruin of millions of artisans
and craftsmen was not accompanied by any growth of newer forms of
industry, and the old urban centers of Indian manufactures (Dacca,
Murshidabad, Surat), were depopulated and laid waste.
The work of destruction was not confined to the towns. "The
handloom and the spinning wheel were the pivots of the structure of
Indian society" which was based on the "domestic union of agricultural
and manufacturing pursuits." 3 "British steam and science uprooted
over the whole surface of Hindusthan the union between agricultural
and manufacturing industry." 4 "The British intruder, who broke up the
Indian handloom and destroyed the spinning wheel" struck at the roots
of Indian society by destroying the balance of the village economy. 5
Thereby Britain produced "the greatest, and to spt:ak the truth, the only
Karl Marx, "The British Rule in India."
282
social revolution ever heard of in Asia," "actuated in this matter only

by the vilest interests, and stupid in her manner of enforcing them."
To consolidate the conquest of India and to develop the Indian

market and resources for exploitation by the British capitalist class as a
whole, the East India Company was replaced in 1858 by direct
governmental administration. After a century of neglect of the most
elementary functions of government, the British inaugurated a process
of active development of the country by (a) building a network of
raiIroads; (b) the development of roads; (c) the introduction of the
electric telegraph and of a uniform postal system; (d) the introduction
of the benefits of Western education to a limited class of Indians; and
(e) the introduction of the European banking system into India. While
opening up India for commercial penetration and providing a market
for the British iron, steel, and engineering industries, this process of
development-especially the construction of railways-at the same
time laid the foundations of a new stage, that of the development of
British capital investments in India.
Modern Imperialist Exploitation
The last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were
marked by the imperialist export of finance-capital from the countries
of Western Europe and North America to every corner of the globe, and
by the conquest and exploitation of all backward countries through the
colonial system. Between 1880 and 1914 the major European powers
and the U.S.A. had carved up the whole world into colonies and
spheres of exploitation. This period of modem imperialist expansion
was marked in India by an intensification of British exploitation and a
corresponding change in its character, wherein the finance-capitalist
exploitation of India came to dominate all other forms. Nevertheless
the new basis of exploitation did not replace the already established
forms of plunder and industrial and trading exploitation, but was
auxiliary and paralled to these processes.
283
British capitalist investment in India developed at a rapid pace in

the second half of the 19th century, with the expansion of railway
construction and also with the establishment of tea, coffee and rubber
plantations and other minor enterprises. The holdings of British capital
in India developed not so much through the export of British capital as
through the investment of the spoils of British plunder in India, at
highly profitable rates. The sterling debt of the Indian Government,
which includes more than one-third of the total holdings of British
capital in India, has been manipulated to include the cost of every
Imperial undertaking (including wars for the subjugation of India and
other colonial wars) which could conceivably be charged to India. The
costs of the public works schemes. carried out and of railway
construction, themselves multiplied by wasteful spending, constitute
but a small proportion of the colossal total of the public debt. At the
same time, the almost continuous excess of the value of Indian exports
to Britain over that of imports, has left no room for a real export of
capital to India. Nevertheless, the volume of British holdings in India
today exceeds 1,000 millions.
With the post-war weakening of Britain's share of the Indian
market (Britain's share ofIndian imports dropped from 63% in 1913 to
29% in 1937) in the face of foreign competition and the rise in Indianespecially cotton-industry, British Imperialism has consolidated its
financial stranglehold on the Indian economy as its chief source of
profit in India. Of Britain's total overseas investments, the proportion
which has been invested in India has risen from 11 % in 1911 to 25% in
1937. Nevertheless, there has been, since 1927, (with the world
economic depression), a sharp drop in the actual volume of British
capital newly invested in India, which reflects the general stagnation of
the economic development of India.
The Retardation of Industrial Development by Imperialism
The capital investments of Britain in India have never led to the

industrialization of India on a scale proportionate to their volume. The
colossal waste involved in the railway construction of the last century
and the unproductive expenditure which swelled India's public debt,
284
first created the glaring disproportion between the size of British

investments and the slow economic development of the country. Up to
1914,97% of British capital invested in India was devoted to purposes
of government (i.e. wars, the heavy costs of bureaucratic
administration, levies for costly durbars etc.), transport, plantations,
and finance. These investments served as auxiliaries to the commercial
penetration of India, and its exploitation as a source of raw materials,
did not lead to the development of modern industry on any
commensurate scale.
The industrial development that has taken place in recent times
bears no relation to India's needs. The vast resources ofIndia have not
been tapped. The rate of Industrial advance, far lower than that of other
large non-European countries, has not, even in modern times, kept pace
with the decline of Indian handicrafts; with the result that, from 1911
to 1931 there has been an actual decline in the proportion of the
population dependent on industry (including domestic industry).
The growth ofIndian industry has been greatly impeded by British
Imperialism, for fear of competition with home industries, by means of
administrative neglect, by a hostile tariff policy, and by unfavourable
currency manipulations. Until 1914 this policy of opposition to Indian
industrial development was openly followed, particularly by the
removal of import duties on competing British goods. The brief and
half-hearted reversal of policy after 1914 and during the period when
British capital flowed into share in the profits of the post-war boom,
was nullified by the later raising of the exchange rate, which
disastrously hit Indian exports.
Under these conditions, the development of modern industry in
India has taken place at a very slow rate, and in a lop-sided fashionchiefly in light industry. The basis necessary for real industrial
development, namely heavy industry, has never been laid. Until 1914,
large organized production was represented chiefly by the cotton, jute,
and coal-mining industries, and by the tea, rubber and coffee
plantations. The post-war period, when foreign competition was
reduced, was marked by a short and feverish boom, which led to the
development of other industries, including iron and steel, cement,
285
The Trotskyist Movement ill IlIdia and Ceyloll
manganese, and other minor types. This period was utilized for
investment by British capital which, during the years 1921 to 1923 ,
flowed in at an average annual rate of over 30 millions. But the brief
post-war boom was followed by a period of stagnation and decline,
prolonged by the currency policy of the Government, and finally
intensified by the world economic crisis of 1929. Indian industry shows
even today no indication of recovery. The scope of the industrialization
undertaken for defence purposes during the present imperialist war is
not calculated to include an all-sided development of Indian industry
but is restricted to the strategic needs of British Imperialism. Such an
all-sided development of industry is excluded by the conditions of
imperialist exploitation itself, by the direct hostility of the Government
to industrial development in India, by the determination of Britain to
maintain its share of the Indian market, and above all by the insoluble
problems of the home market caused by the extreme impoverishment
of the agricultural population under Imperialism. The industrialization
of India, on which her future depends, cannot be carried out without
the overthrow of Imperialism and a sweeping transformation of
agrarian relations.
The Comprador Character of the Indian Bourgeoisie
Despite the hostility of Imperialism to the industrialization of India, it

is British and not Indian capital that has always held the dominant place
in Indian industry, not only through the decisively greater volume of its
investments in industry, but also through its financial stranglehold on
the whole Indian economy. The Indian capitalist class, whose growth
was mainly connected with the development of the cotton industry, has
never been able to shake off the controlling power of British financecapital. The paid-up capital of joint-stock companies registered in India
was only Rs.80 crores in 1914, which is a measure of the belatedness
and weakness of Indian capital. Today the figure has risen to over
Rs.300 crores. The permeation of British capital into companies
registered in India, however, reduces the importance of this figure,
which in any case cannot compare with the total paid-up capital of
foreign (mainly British) companies operating in India, which exceeds
700 millions. Despite the advance of Indian capital, British capital
286
remains in effective monopolist domination in banking, commerce,

exchange, insurance, shipping, in the tea, coffee and rubber plantations,
and in the jute industry. In iron and steel, Indian capital has been forced
to come to terms with British capital, and even in the cotton industry,
the home of Indian capital, the control of British capital through the
managing agency system is very great. Already in 1928 (before the
economic crisis) British managing agents controlled the majority of the
capital of cotton companies (50.3%). The economic depression which
affected Indian industry after 1924 and especially after 1929, and the
bankruptcy liquidations and difficulties of many Indian firms which
had risen in the post-war period, were utilized by British capital to
strengthen its hold on Indian industry.
Most decisive for the controlling power British finance-capital is
the role of the foreign banking system, working in conjunction with the
Government's financial and exchange policies. Financial power
remains monopolized in British hands through the Reserve Bank of
India, the Imperial Bank of India, and the big exchange banks. The
Indian joint-stock banks hold less than one third of bank deposits in
India, and are themselves being invaded by British capital
The Indian capitalist class, therefore, despite its growth in recent
times, remains essentially dependent on, and an agency of British
finance-capital, performing a subsidiary role in the exploitation of
India. Despite its dreams of industrialization, and of a broadened base
of exploitation for itself, the Indian bourgeoisie, shackled as it is to
Imperialism, cannot play the historical role of the West-European
bourgeoisie in liberating and developing the productive forces. The
industrial advance of India demands absolutely the overthrow of
Imperialism, with which Indian bourgeois interests are indissolubly
bound, and the overthrow of which they are bound to resist.
Nevertheless, the rising productive forces in India are straining
against the fetters of imperialism and of the obsolete economic
structure which it maintains and protects. This conflict finds its
expression not only in the industrial stagnation, but in a much sharper
way in the agrarian crisis, which is the index of the bankruptcy of
imperialist economy, and the main driving force towards revolution.
287
Imperialism and the Agrarian Problem
Britain relegated to India the role of an agricultural appendage to

imperialism. The ravages of Indian industries carried out in the 19th
century at once drove the popUlation of the ruined industrial centers
back to the land, and ruined the lives of millions of artisans in the
villages. The resulting over-crowding of agriculture has today reached
a stage of where three-fourths of the entire Indian population are solely
dependent on the land, and where the proportion of the land available
for cultivation has fallen to less than 1 114 acres per head of the
agrarian population. The effects of this exaggerated disequilibrium in
the economy are further aggravated by the stagnation and deterioration
of agriculture itself, for which too the British are directly responsible,
through their disruption of the village economy, their iniquitous
exactions of land revenue, their expropriation of the peasantry, their
creation of parasitic forces in semi-feudal landlordism, and their
notorious neglect of public works on the land-which have from time
immemorial been the function of the government-and without which
in India the cultivation of the soil cannot be carried on. The criminal
indifference of the government and the suffocating parasitism of the
landlords are responsible for the incredibly low productivity and
exhaustion of the soil, for the primitive agricultural technique, for the
waste of labor in fragmented holdings, for the neglect of cultivable soil
(of which 35% is left waste in India and Burma), and for the recent
actual shrinkage in the area under cultivation whereas the population is
on the increase. These conditions, which have depressed the vast
majority of the rural population to a level of unspeakable poverty and
chronic semi-starvation, and have led to a state of permanent
agricultural crisis, are inevitably paving the way for a sweeping
revolution as their only outcome and solution.
The characteristic process of imperialism, the expropriation of the
colonial population from the land, was carried out by the British under
cover of legal forms, which, in fact, transformed the "eternal" land
system of the Indian village commune into an inextricable amalgam of
feudal and semi-feudal rights and tenures. The British introduced into
India "the great desideratum of Asiatic society-private property in the
288
land," making in this connection a series of unsuccessful and really

absurd (and in effect infamous) experiments in economics. 7 In Bengal
they created a caricature of English landed property on a large scale; in
South-Eastern India a caricature of small allotment property; in the
North they transformed to the utmost of their ability the Indian
commune with common ownership of land into a caricature of itself.
The aims which guided the British transformation of the land
system were two-fold-firstly, to guarantee the effective collection of
their extortionate land revenue which rose steeply from the time of the
conquest (from 4 millions in 1800 to 23 millions in 1936-37); and in
the second place, to create a social basis within India for Imperialism
by the creation of Indian landed interests "deeply interested in the
continuance of British dominion." 8 It is above all the still unbroken
alliance between British Imperialism and the Indian landlordism that links
up the overthrow ofImperialism with the agrarian revolution in India.
Landlordism was created and fostered by the British, not only in
the provinces of permanent and temporary zemindari (Bengal, U.P.,
Bihar, Punjab), but also in the ryotwari areas (including Bombay,
Madras etc.) where the processes of mortgage and sub-letting have
caused analogous developments. In many parts oflndia sub-infeudation
and sub-letting have been carried out to fantastic lengths, so that the
cultivator of the soil is despoiled by an increasing army offunctionless
intermediaries in addition to the big parasites and the Government
itself. A great proportion of the real cultivators of the soil are without
The quote is from Karl Marx, "The Future Results of the British Rule in India,"
published in The New York Tribune (22 July 1853), and quoted in R. Palme Dutt,
India Today (1940).
This quote is a paraphrase. In Modern India (1940) R. Palme Dutt gives the
following quote from the speech of Lord WilIiam Bentinck, the Governor-General
of India from 1828 to 1835: "If security was wanting against extensive popular
tumult or revolution, I should say that the Pemlanent Settlement, though a failure
in many other respects and in its most important essentials, has this great advantage
at least, of having created a vast body of rich landed proprietors deeply interested
in the continuance of British Dominion and having complete command over the
masses of the people." R. Palme Dutt, India Today (1940), pp. 211-12.
289
The Trotskyist Movement ill India and Ceyloll
rights of any kind and remain unaffected even by the temporary

legislation by which the Government has sought to stave off the
impending crisis. Even in the Ryotwari areas, where settlement was
originally made with the cultivators themselves, the latter have been
dispossessed to a great extent by money-lenders and others.
From the beginning, landlordism under British rule has been parasitic
in character, since, landlords neither supply agricultural capital nor
control farming operations. Today landlordism, taken in conjunction
with its superstructure of sub-infeudation and sub-letting, is the most
effective barrier to the development of modern large scale farming.
The penetration of finance-capital in the agrarian field, which
characterizes the recent period, far from freeing the productive forces
from the incubus of feudalism, or introducing modern productive
technique, has taken place for the most part within the framework of
feudal and semi-feudal relations, and become enmeshed with feudal
forms of exploitation. The net result has been to add to the burdens of
the peasantry by decisively accelerating their expropriation from the
land, and by crushing them under a load of debt which amounted in
1937 to 1,350 millions. The money-lenders' exactions and
confiscations, together with the payments demanded by the government
and the landlords' extortions, form for the peasantry of triple scourge,
which have reduced the greater proportion of cultivators in India to the
status of unprotected tenants, share-croppers, and landless wagelaborers. Capitalist inroads have sharply accelerated the differentiation
of classes within rural society, increasing the numbers of parasitic rentreceivers on the one hand and of propertyless elements ori the other, as
a comparison of the 1921 with the 1931 census figures illustrates:
Non-cultivating proprietors taking rent
1921.. ........ 3.7 millions.

1931 ......... .4 millions.
Agriculturallaborers (i.e. landless elements, sub-tenants, wage-Iaborers)
1921.. ....... .21. 7 millions.

1931.. ........ 33 millions.
290
The Trotslcyist Movement in India and Ceylon
The particularly rapid growth of parasitic landlordism in recent

times, as well as the sharp rise in rural debt (from 400 millions in 1921
to 1,350 millions in 1937), 'i~ really the reflection of the invasion of
moneyed interests, big and small, in the agrarian field, having failed to
find effective outlets {or investment in productive industry. Thus the
direct plunder of the-peasantry of the early British period has given
place to a network o(:forms of exploitation of modem finance-capital,
with its host of subsidiary parasites in the Indian economy. The Indian
'capitalist class, no less than the British Government and the semifeudal landlords, are tied to the existing order of rural society and
interested in its perpetuation.
Nevertheless, the abolition of landlordism in all its forms in
defiance of all these vested interests, the abolition of rural debt, and the
unencumbered transfer of the land to the cultivators themselves, is the
basic social task of the Indian revolution and the absolute prerequisite
of agricultural advance in India. British Imperialism, in the epoch of
declining world capitalism, has become the most powerful reactionary
force in India, buttressing in turn all other forms of reaction. Its failure
to develop the productive resources in India through industrialization,
and the chronic stagnation and decay of agriculture under its rule, make
its continued existence incompatible with the advancement of India,
and render its overthrow an historical inevitability. To maintain its rule
in India in face of the rising tide of mass revolt, British Imperialism
uses all the weapons of bureaucratic and military repression with
increasing viciousness. Nevertheless, the day of reckoning cannot be
long postponed. The solution of the terrible problems of the toiling
millions of India demands the overthrow and elimination of British
Imperialism, which is the foremost task of the coming Indian
revolution.
291
The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylol1
SECTION 2. THE INDIAN SOCIAL CLASSES AND THEIR POLITICAL ROLES
The Native Princes
The revolt of 1857 represented the last attempt of the old feudal ruling
class of India to throw off the British yoke. This revolt, which despite
its reactionary leadership, laid bare the depths of mass discontent and
unrest, created an alarm in the British rulers, and led to a radical change
of their policy in India. Seeking for bases of social and political support
within India, the British abandoned the policy of annexing the Indian
States within British India, and embarked on a policy of guaranteeing
the remnants of the feudal rulers their privileged and parasitic positions
in innumerable petty principalities, buttressing their power and
protecting them against the masses, and receiving in return the
unqualified support of these elements for the British rule. The princes
of the Native States, maintained at the cost of a chaotic multiplication
of administrative units, are today only the corrupt and dependent tools
of British Imperialism; and the feudatory states, "checkerboarding all
India as they do, are no more than a vast network of fortresses" erected
by the British in their own defence. 9 The variety of the states and
jurisdiction of the feudal princes defies a generalized description, but
they bolster alike the reactionary policies of Imperialism in India. The
despotism and mis-government practiced by the great majority of these
rulers in their territories, have created and perpetuated conditions of
backwardness extreme even in India, including the most primitive
forms of feudal oppression and the institution of slavery itself. Their
collective interests are represented by the Chamber of Princes,
instituted in 1921, which is the most reactionary political body in India.
This quote seems to be a paraphrase. In Modern India (1940) R. Palme Dutt quotes
L.F. Rushbrook-Williams, a forn1er government official, as follows on page 395:
"The situation of these feudatory States, checkerboarding all India as they do, are a
great safeguard. It is like establishing a vast network of friendly fortresses in
debatable territory."
292
The Landlords
The most solid supporters of British rule in India, after the princes are
the landlords. In fact the majority of the princes are themselves no more
than glorified landlords, playing the same parasitic role as the landlords
of British India. The rapid extension of landlordism in modern times
through the development of intermediary and new parasitic classes on
the peasantry, has not only increased the numbers of those who receive
land-rents, but firmly linked their interests with those of the Indian
capitalist class, through the ties of investment and mortgage. The
political role of the landlords has always been one of complete
subservience to British Imperialism, which alone guarantees their
parasitic position. Landlordism is today the most formidable buttress
of British Imperialism within Indian society, as well as the greatest
obstacle in the way of agricultural development which demands a
thorough-going democratic revolution in the agrarian field and the
liquidation of landlordism in all its forms.
The Indian Bourgeoisie
The second half of the 19th century saw the rise of an Indian capitalist
class in Bombay and other industrial and commercial centers. The
Indian bourgeoisie of the early period, being of a predominantly
commercial character, and conscious of their own weakness and
completely dependent position in economy, offered no challenge
whatever to British rule. This weakness found its reflection in the early
policies of the Indian National Congress, which, since its inception in
1885, loyally co-operated with British Imperialism and offered only the
mildest criticism of governmental policies. But the growing strength of
the industrial bourgeoisie in the last two decades of the 19th century
and the deep economic conflict between their own interests and those
of their British competitors, drove them, from the first decade of the
20th century, to utilise the national political movement as a means to
strengthen their bargaining power against British Imperialism and
extend their own field of exploitation. The growing strength of the
industrial bourgeoisie was reflected in the change of policies of the
Indian National Congress since the early years of the present century.
293
The bourgeoisie, in the absence of any competing class and

especially of an independent proletarian movement, assumed complete
leadership of the national political movement from the beginning
through its party, the Indian National Congress. The bourgeois
leadership of the movement was clearly demonstrated in 1905 by the
choice of the economic boycott of foreign goods as the method of
struggle against the partition of Bengal. The aims of the bourgeoisie
during this period were defined as the "attainment of colonial selfgovernment within the empire" as junior partner of the imperialists.
They abandoned the struggle for a policy of co-operation with the
government after the grating of the Morley-Minto reforms, their own
immediate purposes being satisfied.
The last years of the First World War, and the years which
immediately followed it, were marked by the development, for the first
time since 1857, of a mass struggle on a national scale against
Imperialism, based on the discontent and unrest of the peasantry and
the working class. This discontent was especially marked in Bombay,
where the wave reached its highest point in 1920, for which year the
number of strikers reached the gigantic total of 1.5 millions. The
Montagu-Chelmsford reforms were designed to meet this rising threat
by buying off the bourgeois leadership, and they succeeded to an
extent, that section of the bourgeoisie who wanted whole-hearted cooperation with the government seceding from the Congress to form the
Liberal Federation (1918). But taking advantage of the growing mass
movement, the Congress bourgeoisie launched under its own banner
the passive resistance movement, and the later mass civil disobedience
movement of 1921-22, but betrayed the movement from the inside the
moment it showed signs of developing into revolutionary channels. The
movement, which despite its timid and unwilling leadership, had
attained the undeniable character of a mass revolt against the British
Raj, was abruptly called off when at its height by the bourgeois leader
Gandhi, and a period of demoralization for the masses followed. The
reactionary and treacherous character of the bourgeois leadership was
shown clearly in the Bardoli resolution of 1922, which condemned the
no-tax campaign of the peasantry and insisted on the continuation of
rent-payments to the landlords, assuring the Zemindars that the
294
Congress "had no intention of attacking their legal rights." 10 The

bourgeoisie this demonstrated their reactionary attitude towards the
land question, in which lies the main driving force towards revolution
in India. The reactionary and treacherous character of the bourgeois
leadership was also displayed in the doctrine of Ahimsa by the foisting
of which on the movement in 1921-22 and ever since, the bourgeoisie
have attempted to ensure their control of the national movement by
restricting the form and scope of the struggle and insuring against its
moving into revolutionary channels.
The working class upsurge of 1928-29 with the tremendous growth
in the organized strength of the working class and the adoption by the
workers for the first time of a proletarian (communist) ideology,
marked the beginning of a new phase in the oppositional role to
imperialism of the bourgeoisie, which from now on underwent a
progressive weakening. With the worsening conditions of the late
twenties, the mass struggle developed again at a rising tempo, and was
again led to defeat by the Congress (1930-34). The aims of the new
struggle were limited by Gandhi beforehand to the celebrated eleven
points which represented exclusively the most urgent demands of the
Indian bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the movement developed in 1930 far
beyond the limits laid down for it by the Congress, with rising strikes,
powerful mass demonstrations, the Chittagong Annoury raid, and the
rising at Peshawar and Sholapur. Gandhi declared openly to the
Viceroy that he was fighting as much against the rising forms of revolt
as against British Imperialism. The bourgeois aim was hence-forward
to secure concessions from Imperialism at the price of betraying the
mass struggle in which they saw a real and growing threat to
themselves. Then Gandhi-Irwin settlement was a settlement against the
mass movement, and paved the way for the terrific repression which
fell on the movement during its ebb in the years 1932-34.
10
On February 12, 1922 the Congress Working Committee, summoned to ratify

Gandhi's decision to halt the Non-Cooperation struggle, passed the famous Bardoli
Resolution which included the following clause: "The Working Committee assures
the zemindars that the Congress movement is in no way intended to attack their
legal rights."
295
Since 1934, Gandhi and the leaders of the National Congress have
had as their chief aim that of preventing the renewal of the mass
struggle against Imperialism, while using their leadership of the
national movement as a lever to secure the concessions they hoped to
obtain from Imperialism. They see in the rising forces of revolt, and
especially in the emergence of the working class as a political force, a
threat to their own bases of exploitation, and are consequently
following an increasingly reactionary policy. Re-organizing the party
administration so as to secure to the big bourgeoisie the unassailable
position of leadership (1934), they transferred the center of activities
to the parliamentary field and to working the new constitution in such a
way as to secure the maximum benefits to the bourgeoisie; until the
intransigence of the British Government in the war situation and the
withdrawal of many of the political concessions of Provincial
Autonomy again forced the Congress into opposition (1939). At present
the Congress bourgeoisie is engaged in a restricted campaign of
individual (non-violent) civil disobedience, with narrowly defined
bourgeois aims, and under the dictatorial control of Gandhi himself.
By this move they hope to prevent the development of a serious mass
struggle against Imperialism, the leadership of which will be bound to
pass into other hands.
The main instrument whereby the Indian bourgeoisie seek to
maintain control over the national movement is the Indian National
Congress, the classic party of the Indian capitalist class, seeking as it
does the support ofthe petty bourgeoisie and if possible of the workers,
for their own aims. Despite the fact that revolutionary and semirevolutionary elements still remain within the fold of the Congress,
despite its mass membership (5 millions in 1939), and despite the
demagogic programmatic pronouncements (Constituent Assembly,
Agrarian Reform), which the Congress has repeatedly made, the
direction of its policy remains exclusively in the hands of the
bourgeoisie, as also the control of the party organization, as was
dramatically proved at Tripuri and after. The Indian National Congress
in its social composition, its organization, and above all in its political
leadership can be compared to the Kuomintang, which led the Chinese
Revolution of 1925-27 to its betrayal and defeat.
296
The characterization of the Indian National Congress as a multiclass party, as the "National United Front" or as "a platform rather than
a party" is a flagrant deception, and is calculated only to hand over to
the bourgeoisie in advance the leadership of the coming struggle, and
so make its betrayal and defeat a forgone conclusion.
The more openly reactionary' interests of the Indian bourgeoisie
find expression in many organizations which exist side by side with the
Congress. Thus, the Liberal Federation (1918) represents those
bourgeois elements who co-operate openly with the Imperialists. The
sectional interests of the propertied classes are represented by various
communal organizations, notably the Muslim League (1905) and the
Hindu Mahasabha (1925), which are dominated by large landlord
interests and pursue a reactionary policy on all social and economic
issues, deriving a measure of mass support by an appeal to the religious
and communal sentiments of the backward masses.
The Petty Bourgeoisie
Because of their position of dependence on the capitalist class, and in

the absence of a real challenge to its leadership from the proletariat, the
various elements of the urban petty bourgeoisie and of the petty
bourgeois intelligentsia have always played a satellite role to the
bourgeoisie. The radicalization of the petty bourgeoisie under
Imperialism found its first and strongest expression in the prolonged
terrorist movement in Bengal and elsewhere, despite the heroism of its
protagonists, the failure of which demonstrates finally the utter
inability of the petty bourgeoisie intelligentsia to find an independent
solution of its own problems.
Today the urban petty bourgeoisie finds its political reflection
mainly in the various organizations within the folds of, or under the
influence of the Indian National Congress, such as the Forward Bloc,
the Congress Socialist Party, (till recently), the Radical Democratic
Party of M.N. Roy, etc. Within the Congress, the petty bourgeois
leaders have repeatedly lent themselves to be used by the bourgeoisie
as a defensive coloration before the masses, bridging with their radical
297
phrases and irresponsible demagogy the gap between the reactionary

Congress leadership and the hopes and aspirations of the masses. Thus
the demagogy of Bose and Nehru, as well as the socialist phrases of
M.N. Roy and the Congress Socialist Party, to say nothing of the
"Marxism" of the National Fronters of the Communist Party of India,
have in turn served the Gandhian leaders as a smoke screen for their
own reactionary maneuvers.
The humiliating capitulation of the C.S.P. to the Congress
leadership, the conversion of Roy and his Radical Democrats to
imperialist war-mongering and their transformation into open agents of
the pro-imperialist section of the Indian bourgeoisie, are symptoms of
the diminishing political role of the petty bourgeois intelligentsia,
which, however theatrically it may pose before the masses in normal
times, exposes in times of growing crisis its political bankruptcy, and
exists only to be utilized by the bourgeoisie in their deception of the
masses.
The Peasantry
The Peasantry comprises the vast majority of the Indian population

(70%). The stagnation and deterioration of agriculture, the increasing
land hunger, the exactions of the government, the extension of parasitic
landlordism, the increasing load of rural deb't and the consequent
expropriation of the cultivators, are together driving the peasantry on
to the revolutionary road. Peasant unrest, leading frequently to actual
risings-Santhal Rebellion of 1855, Deccan Riots of 1975, Indigo
War-has been a recurring motive in recent Indian history. In the last
decades, and especially since the world economic crisis (1929), the
peasant movement has been on the rise, and has taken on a more and
more radical character.
It is precisely the depth and scope of the agrarian crisis that places
the revolution against Imperialism on the order of the day, contributing
to it the driving force and the sweep which are necessary to accomplish
the overthrow of the ruling power. Nevertheless, the agrarian crisis
alone cannot produce a revolution, and the peasantry requires the
298
leadership of another class to raise the stmggle to the level of a national

revolution. The isolation and the scattered character of the peasant
economy, the historical and political backwardness of the mral masses,
the lack of inner cohesion within the peasantry, and the conflicting aims
of its various strata, all combine to make it impossible for the peasantry
to play a leading or even an independent role in the coming revolution.
The invasion of moneyed interests has sharply accelerated the
disintegrating tendencies within the peasantry. The creation of a vast
army of landless peasants, share-croppers and wage-Iaborers on the
land has immensely complicated the agrarian problem, and rendered
necessary revolutionary measures of the most far-reaching character.
The basic antagonism between landlord and peasant has not been
reduced by the entry of finance-capital into agriculture, since this did
not bring with it any change for the better in farming methods or in the
system of land-tenure. On the contrary, the landlord-peasant
antagonism has been given a sharper emphasis by the extension of
parasitic claims on the land, and the overthrow of landlordism by the
transference of the land to the cultivators remains the primary task of
the agrarian revolution. Nevertheless, this basic antagonism has been
supplemented by a new one, which is reflected in the growth of an
agricultural proletariat in the strict sense of the word. Besides this, the
invasion of finance-capital has . made the problems of mortgage and
rural debt more pressing in some parts of India than in others, and these
facts taken together will probably give to the agrarian revolution, at
least in some areas, an anti-capitalist character at a very early stage.
It is clear that the rural laborers are still too closely connected with
the peasantry and share too closely the misfortunes of the peasantry
generally, for the movement of the rural workers as such to assume
national significance. But at the same time, these new problems of
agriculture cannot be solved by the overthrow of landlordism alone,
which cannot by itself put an end to land hunger, or reduce the heavy
and disproportionate pressure of the population on the land. The
introduction of socialist measures of large-scale collective farming, etc.
will become necessary at some stage, depending on the correlation of
political forces and the prospects of industrializing agriculture.
299
Leadership of the Revolution
The leadership of the revolution, which the peasantry cannot provide

for itself, can come only from an urban class. But the Indian
bourgeoisie cannot possibly provide this leadership, since in the first
place, it is reactionary through and through on the land question itself,
sharing as it does so largely in the parasitic exploitation of the
peasantry. Above all, the bourgeoisie, on account of its inherent
weakness and dependence on Imperialism itself, is destined to play a
counter-revolutionary role in the coming struggle for power.
The leadership of the peasantry in the coming petty bourgeois
democratic agrarian revolution that is immediately posed can therefore
come only from the industrial proletariat, and an alliance between the
proletariat and the peasantry is fundamental pre-requisite of the Indian
revolution. This alliance cannot be conceived in the form of a
"Workers' and Peasants' Party" or of a "democratic dictatorship of
workers and peasants" in the revolution. It is impossible so to fuse
within a single party or a dictatorship the policies of two classes whose
interests only partially coincide and are bound to come into conflict
sooner or later. The revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and
peasantry can mean only proletarian leadership of the peasant struggle
and, in case of revolutionary victory, the establishment of the
proletarian dictatorship with the support of the peasantry.
The Peasant Movement
The growth of the peasant movement in recent times has led to the
formation of various mass organizations among the peasantry, among
which the most important are the Kisan Sanghas, (Peasant
Committees), which are loosely linked up on a district, provincial, and
finally all-Indian scale in the All-India Kisan Sabha, whose
membership in 1939 was 800,000. These associations, whose precise
character varies from district to district, are in general today under the
control and influence of petty bourgeois intelligentsia elements who, as
pointed out before, cannot follow a class policy independent of the
bourgeoisie, although the growing mass pressure upon them is reflected
300
in the more sharply radical demands they at forced to put forward.

There is no means of deciding in advance the exact role of the kisan
sanghas in the coming revolution. This will be determined by the
correlation of forces within them, which in turn will depend largely on
the consciousness and militancy of the lower layers of the peasantry
and the measure of control they exercise in the kisan sanghas. But it
can be stated beforehand, on the basis of the experience of the Russian
and Chinese revolutions, that the existence of kisan sanghas, on
however wide a scale, does not offer a substitute for the separate
organizations of poor peasants and agricultural laborers in Rural
Soviets, under the leadership of the urban working class. Only the
soviets can assure that the agrarian revolution will be carried out in a
thorough-going manner.
The Working Class
The industrial proletariat is the product of modern capitalism in India.

Its rapid growth in the period since 1914 can be illustrated by a
comparison of the Factory Acts statistics for 1914 and 1936.
1914
1936
No. of Factories
No. of Workers Employed
2936
9323
950,973
1,652,147
The numerical strength of the industrial proletariat can be

estimated at 5 millions, distributed mainly as follows (1935 figures):(a) Workers in power-driven factories
(including those of the Native States)
(b) Miners
(c) Railwaymen
(d) Water Transport Workers
(e) Plantation Workers
1,855,000
371,000
636,000
361,000
1,000,000
The Indian working class is chiefly employed in light industries

(cotton, jute etc.), but also to some extent in the iron and steel, cement,
and coal-mining industries. The degree of concentration in industrial
301
The Trotskyist Movement ill India and Ceyloll
establishments is relatively high, owing to the recency of industrial

development and the typically modern character of many of the new
enterprises. Despite its numerical weakness in relation to the total
population, the proletariat holds a position in Indian society which is
quite out of proportion to its actual size, on account of the vital place it
occupies in the economy of the country. The proletariat has grown with
the investment of British capital from the beginning of capitalist
production in India to this day. Although the native bourgeoisie has come
belatedly on the scene to take part in the capitalist exploitation of the
working class, the main and effective means of production are in the
hands of British capital. Consequently, the working class has developed,
out of all proportion, to the relative growth of the Indian bourgeoisie.
The wage rates of the Indian proletariat are among the lowest, the
living conditions the most miserable, the hours of work the longest, the
factory conditions the worst, and the death-rate the highest, in the
civilized world. When these facts are taken together with the fabulous
profits made by the capitalist, (British and Indian alike), out of Indian
industry, it becomes clear that the working class is the most ruthlessly
and directly exploited class in India. The fight to remedy these
intolerable conditions and to protect themselves from the steadily
worsening conditions of exploitation bring the workers directly to the
revolutionary struggle against imperialism and the capitalist system,
the destruction of which is necessary to their emancipation.
Working-Class Struggles
The record of proletarian struggle in India can be traced back to the last
century; but the movement took on an organized character only in the
post-war period. The first great wave of strikes (1918-21) signaled the
emergence of the Indian working class as a separate force, and gave to
the national political movement during this period a truly revolutionary
significance for the first time in its history. In 1920, on the crest of this
strike wave the Indian Trade Union Congress was formed. The second
great strike wave of the late twenties, especially in Bombay, showed an
immense advance in the working class movement, marked by its
increasing awakening to communist ideas.
302
In 1929 the T.U.C. was split in two by the agents of the

Imperialists in the working class movement, who insisted on cooperation with the Whitley Commission and the International Labor
Office. Thus arose the reactionary Trade Union Federation (1929). The
main body of the T.U.C. came under the control of the Communists
and the nationalist bourgeoisie. But with the arrest of the Communist
leaders on trumped-up charge, (the Meerut Conspiracy case), and the
disastrous "Red Trade Union" policy followed by the Communists in
accordance with the instructions of the Comintern bureaucracyleading to a further splitting of the T. U.c. in 1931 into trade unions
under Communist control and trade unions under the influence of the
nationalist bourgeoisie-the wave of working class struggle subsided
once more. It was in this period, (i930-31), that the Communist Party
of India, which commanded the confidence of the awakening workers,
made the grievous political mistake of standing aside from the political
mass movement which was again developing into a mass revolt against
the British Raj.
The tendency towards economic recovery commencing in 1936
combined with the mass activities in connection with the election
campaign of the Congress led to a revival in the mass movement which
entered once again on a period of rise. The Congress Ministries saw a
resurgence of the working class strike movement with the Bengal Jute
Strike (1937) and the Cawnpore Textile Strike (1938), which was
arrested only by measures of increased repression introduced by the
Government since the outbreak of war; but not before the Indian
working class had clearly demonstrated its attitude towards the
Imperialist war, particularly by the mass political anti-war strike in
Bombay of 86,000 workers.
In the political arena the working class has repeatedly
demonstrated its heroism and its readiness for unremitting struggle. Its
failure, nevertheless, to wrest the leadership of the national movement
from bourgeois hands, must be explained by its own weakness in
consciousness and organization, added to by the defects of its
leadership in the critical years in particular.
303
The Trotskyist Movement in India Gnd Ceyloll
The Communist Party ofIndia which alone in the last two decades
could have afforded the Marxist leadership that, above all things the
working class needed, made instead a series of irresponsible mistakes,
which find their expression in the bureaucratically conceived policies
of the Comintern. In conformity with its false central programmatic
aim the "democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants," the C.P.I.
fostered the growth of Workers' and Peasants' Parties from 1926-28, at
the expense of an independent working class party. This policy was
shelved in 1929 to make way for an ultra-left sectarian policy, (in the
celebrated "Third Period" days of the Comintern), the signal
expression of which lay in the splitting of the trade union movement by
the formation of "Red Trade Unions." This sectarian policy of the C.P.I.
led to its isolation from the mass struggle of 1930-31, and made the
bourgeois betrayal of the struggle so much the easier. In the period of
ebb which followed, the C.P.I. was illegalized (1934) and has remained
so since. From 1935 onwards the C.P.I., (again at the behest of the
Comintern, now openly and flagrantly the tool of the Soviet
bureaucracy), reversed its policy once more, and held out the hand of
collaboration to the bourgeoisie through its policy of National Front
which credited the bourgeoisie with a revolutionary role. The C.P.I. was
transformed into a loyal opposition within the Congress, having no
policy independent of that organization, a state of things which
continued even into the period of the imperialist war.
The mechanical echoers of every new slogan advanced by the
Comintern to suit the changing policies of the Soviet bureaucrats, the
C.P.1. has shown its reactionary character by its vacillating attitude
towards the imperialist war. Today this attitude is the most shameful
and callous of all, since in servile obedience to the counte-rrevolutionary Kremlin clique, they are openly advocating
unconditional and active support of the Imperialist war. With its false
theory of National Front, the C.P.I. is making ready to repeat the
betrayal of the Chinese Revolution by handing over the leadership of
the revolutionary struggle to the treacherous bourgeoisie. The
Communist Party of India, because of the prestige it seeks to obtain
from the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union, is today the most
dangerous influence within the working class of India.
304
The Congress Socialist Party (1934) has from the beginning

followed a policy of utter subservience to the Congress bourgeoisie,
and remains today completely without a base within the working class.
Surrendering its claim to an independent existence, the C.S.P. has been
split wide open by the Communists who worked inside it, and is today
an empty shell, devoid of political substance.
To the left of the Communist Party, disgusted with its bureaucratic
leaders and its reactionary policies, there exist a number of small
parties and groups, occupying centrist positions. Such are the Bengal
Labor Party (Bolshevik Party), the Red Flag Communists, etc. Without
a clear-cut revolutionary policy and without making a decisive break
organizationally and politically with the Comintern, these parties and
groups are unable to offer the working class the independent leadership
it requires. Nevertheless, these groups and parties contain may tried
fighters who would be invaluable in a revolutionary working class
party. This party can only be the Bolshevik-Leninist Party ofIndia, the
party of the Fourth International in India, which alone, with its
revolutionary strategy based on the accumulated experience of history
and the theory of Permanent Revolution in particular, can lead the
working class of India to revolutionary victory.
Despite its subjective weakness in organization and consciousness,
inevitable in a backward country and in the conditions of repression
surrounding it, the working class is entirely capable of leading the
Indian revolution. It is only class objectively fitted for this role, not
only in relation to the Indian situation, but in view of the decline of
capitalism on world scale, which opens the road to the international
proletarian revolution. The proletariat needs above all to develop its
own independent political party, free from the influence of the
bourgeoisie, and armed with the weapons of revolutionary Marxism, to
lead it not only in the day to day struggles but above all in the coming
revolution. Without such a party the proletariat must fail in its historic
task of leading the masses of India to revolutionary victory.
305
SECTION 3. THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION
India faces a historically belated bourgeois-democratic revolution, the

main tasks of which are the overthrow of British Imperialism, the
liquidation of a semi-feudal land system, and the clearing away of
feudal remnants in the form of the Indian Native States. But although
the bourgeois-democratic revolution occurring in the advanced
capitalist countries in previous centuries found leadership in the then
rising bourgeoisie, the Indian bourgeoisie, appearing on the scene only
after the progressive role of the bourgeoisie in the world as a whole has
been exhausted, is incapable of providing leadership to the revolution
that is unfolding in India.
In the first place, as a historically belated class, they do not possess
the strength and independence of the early bourgeoisie of former times.
Connected with and dependent on British capital from their birth, they
have progressively been brought into a position of subservience to British
finance-capital, and today display the characteristics of a predominantly
comprador bourgeoisie enjoying at the best the position of a very junior
partner in the firm, British Imperialism & Co. Hence, while they have
been prepared to place themselves, through the Indian National Congress,
at the head of the anti-imperialist mass movement for the purpose of
utilizing it as a bargaining weapon to secure concessions from the
imperialists, they have restricted its scope and prevented its development
into a revolutionary assault on imperialism. Incapable from the very nature
of their position of embarking on a revolutionary struggle to secure their
independence, and fearful of such a struggle, they have maintained their
control over the mass movement only to betray it at every critical juncture.
Secondly, unlike the once revolutionary bourgeoisie of former
times, which arose in opposition to the feudal landowning class and in
constant struggle against it, the Indian bourgeoisie is closely connected
with the landlords through mortgages. They are therefore incapable of
leading the peasants in the agrarian revolt against landlordism. On the
contrary, as is clearly demonstrated by the declared policy and actions
of the Indian National Congress, both during the Civil Disobedience
Movements and in the period of the Congress Ministries, they are
staunch supporters of zemindari interests.
306
Finally, unlike the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of former times,

the revolution in India is unfolding at a time when large concentrations
of workers already exist in the country. The industrial proletariat
numbering 5 millions occupies a position of strategic importance in the
economy of the country which cannot be measured by its mere numerical
strength. It is important to remember, moreover, that a hitherto
unca1culated but undoubtedly very high proportion of these workers are
employed in large concerns employing several hundreds and thousands
of workers. The high degree of concentration of the Indian proletariat
immeasurably advances its class consciousness and organizational
strength. It was only in the post-war years that the Indian working class
emerged as an organized force on a national scale. But the militant and
widespread strike-waves of 1918-21 and of 1928-29, which were the
precursors of the mass civil disobedience movements of 1920-21 and
of 1930-34 respectively, testify to the rapidity of the awakening. These
workers are in daily conflict not only with the Imperialist owners of
capital, but also with the native bourgeoisie. The workers, moreover, being
a class exploited not only by indigenous capital, but also in fact
predominantly by foreign capital, have as a class grown to an extent
out of all proportion to the size and strength of the Indian bourgeoisie.
Faced by the threat of this new and growing class, which is rapidly
awakening to consciousness and making a bid to play an independent role
in the national political arena, the Indian bourgeoisie has grown more
conservative and suspicious. With every advance in organization and
consciousness of the workers, they have drawn nearer to the
Imperialists and further away from the masses. Even the oppositional role
they were wont to play against Imperialism has become a caricature of
its former self. Fearful already of any kind of mass movement against
Imperialism, the aim of their control over the national movement
through the Indian National Congress is today not so much the securing
of concessions from Imperialism as preventing the outbreak of an antiimperialist movement on a mass scale. It is clear that not a single one
of the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution can be solved under
the leadership of the Indian bourgeoisie. Far from leading the
bourgeois-democratic revolution, the Indian bourgeoisie will go over
to the camp of the Imperialists and landlords on the outbreak of the
revolution and will play an actively counter-revolutionary role.
307
The urban petty bourgeoisie, daily becoming declassed and ..'

pauperized under imperialism, and declining into economic
insignificance, cannot even conceive of playing an independent role in
the coming revolution. Since, however, there is no prospect whatever
of improving their condition under imperialism, but on the contrary
they are faced with actual pauperization and ruin, they are forced on to '
the revolutionary road.
The peasantry, the largest numerically and the most atomized,
backward and oppressed class, is capable of local uprisings and
partisan warfare, but requires the leadership of a more advanced class
for this struggle to be elevated to an all-national level. Without such
leadership the peasantry alone cannot make a revolution. The task of
such leadership falls in the nature of things on the Indian proletariat,
which is the only class capable of leading the toiling masses in the
onslaught against Imperialism, landlordism and the Native Princes. The
concentration and discipline induced by its very place in capitalist
economy, it numerical strength, the sharpness of the class antagonism
which daily brings it into conflict with the Imperialists who are the
main owners of capital in India, its organization and experience of
struggle,and the vital position it occupies in the economy of the
country, as also its steadily worsening condition under Imperialism, all
combine to fit the Indian proletariat for this task. It is only under the
leadership of the Indian proletariat (as distinct from the "hegemony of
the proletariat," which is an equivocal and deceptive phrase coined in
preparation for handing over the leadership to the bourgeoisie) that the
revolution in India can be carried to a victorious conclusion.
But the leadership of the working class in the bourgeois-democratic
revolution poses before the working class the prospect of seizing the
power and in addition to accomplishing the long overdue bourgeoisdemocratic tasks of proceeding with its own socialist tasks. And thus
the bourgeois-democratic revolution develops uninterruptedly into the
proletarian revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the
proletariat as the only state-form capable of supplanting the dictatorship
of the imperialist bourgeoisie in India. The realization of the combined
character of the Indian revolution is essential for the planning of the
308
The 1iYJtskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
revolutionary strategy of the working class. Should the working class

fail in its historic task of seizing the power and establishing the
dictatorship of the proletariat, the revolution will inevi~ably recede, the
bourgeois tasks themselves remain unperformed, and the power swing
back in the end to the imperialists without whom the Indian bourgeoisie
cannot maintain itself against the hostile masses. A backward country
like India can accomplish its bourgeois-democratic revolution only
through the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The
correctness of this axiom of the theory of permanent revolution is
demonstrated by the victorious Russian revolution of October 1917, as
it is confirmed on the negative side by the tragic fate of the Chinese
revolution of 1925-27. The seizure of power and the establishment of
the dictatorship of the proletariat is the supreme task of the Indian
working class. The illusory slogan of "democratic dictatorship of
workers and peasants" (postulating a non-existent intermediate stage
prior to the proletarian dictatorship in which the bourgeois-democratic
tasks are performed), which the Bolshevik Party, under the leadership
of Lenin, abandoned in time to save the Russian revolution, can result,
only in confusing and misleading the workers. In China, the
"democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants" was demonstrated
in practice to be nothing more than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
In India, moreover, where the Imperialists are the main owners of
capital, the revolutionary assault of the workers against Imperialism
will bring them into direct and open conflict with the property forms of
the Imperialists from the moment the struggle enters the openly
revolutionary stage. The exigencies of the struggle itself will, in the
course of the openly revolutionary assault against Imperialism,
demonstrate to the workers the necessity of destroying not only
Imperialism but the foundations of capitalism itself. The workers will
learn that it is a desperate struggle not only against Imperialism, but
also against its economic and political agencies in India, against the
native bourgeoisie, and all their flunkeys. Thus, though the Indian
revolution will be bourgeois in its immediate aims, the tasks of the
proletarian revolution will be posed from the outset. The expropriation
ofthe capitalists will be on the order of the day on the very morrow of
the seizure of power by the workers.
309
But the revolution cannot be stabilized even at this stage. The

dictatorship of the proletariat in India alone cannot maintain itself
indefinitely against the hostile forces of World Imperialism without the
support of the international proletariat. It will find a powerful ally, no
doubt, in the Soviet Union, the first workers' state. But the ultimate
fate of the revolution in India, as in Russia, will be determined in the
arena of the international revolution. Nor will India by its own forces
be able to accomplish the task of making the transition to Socialism.
Not only the backwardness of the country, but also the international
division of labor and the interdependence produced by capitalism
itself-of the different parts of the world economy, demand that this
task of the establishment of Socialism can be accomplished only on a
world scale. The Indian proletariat will, of course, proceed with the
socialist transformation of society to the extent that this is possible in
the concrete circumstances, but the establishment of the socialist
society will depend on the course of international revolution. The
victorious revolution in India, however, dealing a mortal blow to the
oldest and most widespread Imperialism in the world, will, on the one
hand, produce the most profound crisis in the entire capitalist world
and shake World Capitalism to its foundations. On the other hand, it
will inspire and galvanize into action millions of proletarians and
colonial slaves the world over and blaze the trail of World Revolution.
Accordingly the Bolshevik-Leninist Party declares its fundamental
aims to be the following:
(1) The Overthrow of British Imperialism.
(2) The Seizure of Power by the Working Class and the
Establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
(3) The Confiscation and Nationalization of all Factories, Mines,
Banks, Plantations and Other Capitalist Concerns.
(4) The Nationalization of the Land.
(5) The Abolition of the Native States.
310
The TrotsJ,.yist Movement in India and Ceylon
SECTION 4. THE PROGRAMME OF TRANSITIONAL DEMANDS
The strategic task of Bolshevik-Leninists in the present period, a prerevolutionary period of agitation, propaganda and organization,
consists in overcoming the contradiction between the maturity of the
objective revolutionary conditions in India (accentuated enormously by
the present Imperialist World War) and the immaturity of the proletariat
and its vanguard. This strategic task is unthinkable without the most
considered' attention to all, even small and partial question of tactics. It
is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to
find the bridge between the present demands and the programme of the
Indian revolution. The Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India stands in the
forefront of all day to day struggles of the workers and lends its support
to the struggles of the peasantry and other oppressed sections. But it
carries on this day to day work within the framework of the actual, that
is, revolutionary perspective of the overthrow of Imperialism.
At the same time, the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India puts
forward a programme of transitional demands flowing from today's
conditions and from today's consciousness of wide layers of the masses
ano unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the overthrow of
Imperialism and the conquest of power by the proletariat. This is of
particularly great importance in the present epoch, when every serious
demand of the proletariat, and every serious demand of the peasantry
and wide strata of the petty bourgeoisie is incapable of realization
under imperialism (nor in fact within the limits of capitalist property
relations and of the bourgeois state). The present epoch is distinguished
not for the fact that it frees the revolutionary party from day to day
work, but because, it permits this work to be carried on indissolubly
with the actual tasks of the revolution. The essence of the transitional
demands is contained in the fact that ever more openly and decisively
they will be directed against imperialism and the very bases of the
bourgeois regime itself. The task of the transitional programme lies in
the systematic mobilization of the masses for the revolution under the
leadership of the proletariat.
311
The National Political Movement
The supreme task of the Indian proletariat is the conquest of power and
the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But, to fulfil this
task the proletariat must, as a pre-condition, lead the peasantry and
other democratic petty bourgeoisie to the overthrow of British
Imperialism, the liquidation of landlordsim and the abolition of the
Native States. This is the only road in India to the proletarian
dictatorship. The struggle for the revolutionary achievement of these
democratic tasks can go forward only under the leadership of the
proletariat and will necessitate the most resolute struggle against the
Indian bourgeoisie and their petty bourgeois agencies in the political
movement.
Hence, the Indian situation not only demands that the Indian
proletariat advance by all the means within its power its own class
struggle against capitalism, imperialist and native alike. It is also
imperative that the proletariat should participate actively in the wider
national political movement, with the aim of wresting the leadership Of
the anti-imperialist struggle from the hands of the reactionary native
bourgeoisie, and further that it should give its fullest support to the
developing peasant struggle against landlordism, thereby laying the
foundations of the revolutionary worker-peasant alliance, which is the
absolute pre-requisite of the victory of the Indian revolution.
The necessity to participate in the national political movement
does not, however, in the least imply a policy of mass affiliation
(individual or collective) to the Indian National Congress which,
though predominantly petty bourgeois in composition, is completely
dominated and led by the Indian bourgeoisie and functions as the
servile instrument of its class policies. To regard the Congress as a
"National United Front," or to entertain any illusions whether of
capturing the Congress from the bourgeoisie or of successfully
exposing its bourgeois leadership while remaining loyal to the
Congress, would be fatal to the independence of the proletarian
movement and its assumption of political leadership, and would serve
only the reactionary interests of the bourgeoisie. The Bolshevik-
312
Leninist Party therefore, denounces the Indian National Congress as

the class party of the Indian bourgeoisie, and calls upon the workers to
place no trust whatever in the Congress or its leaders. This does not of
course absolve Bolshevik-Leninists from the task of doing fraction
work (of course, in all cases under strict party discipline) within the
Congress, so long as there remain within their folds revolutionary and
semi-revolutionary elements who may be won away from these
organizations. Nor does the Bolshevik-Leninist Party follow a sectarian
policy with regard to such activities of the Congress as are progressive.
It will discern the progressive acts of the Congress and support them,
but critically and independently, without confounding its organization,
programme or banner with the Congress for a moment. "March
separately, strike together"-must be the watchword of the policy of
the Bolshevik-Leninist Party in relation to all progressive actions under
the aegis of the Congress, to every oppositional and revolutionary
action undertaken against British Imperialism. At the same time the
Bolshevik-Leninist Party must put forward its own slogans, foresee the
inevitable betrayals of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois leaders, warn
the masses against them, and this gain the confidence of the masses on
t~e basis of their revolutionary experience.
Constituent Assembly
The slogan of Constituent Assembly has been widely accepted by many

political organizations in India as the central slogan of the antiimperialist movement. But this slogan, conceiving of an intermediate
democratic stage in the Indian revolution, when a democratically
elected parliament will have the power, is illusive and deceptive. It is
destined in the later phases of the revolution to be utilized by the
bourgeoisie and its agents as a slogan in opposition to and for the
sabotaging of the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship in the
soviet form. Hence the Bolshevik-Leninist Party cannot under any
circumstances give it unqualified support.
However, the slogan of Constituent Assembly, advanced as a
fighting slogan to overthrow imperialism, is capable of assuming a
progressive character in the early stages of the revolutionary struggle.
313
In such circumstances, the Bolshevik-Leninist Party will lend its

critical support to the slogan, not as one capable of objective
fulfillment even for a successful revolution, but as a rallying cry in the
specific stage of the struggle. At the same time, the Bolshevik-Leninist
Party must advance and popularize its own slogan of soviets. In any
case Bolshevik-Leninist Party cannot render any support whatsoe~er to
the fraudulent slogan of Constituent Assembly as put forward at present
by the Congress. In the mouths of the bourgeoisie this slogan does not
connote the overthrow of imperialist rule but becomes a deceptive
catchword signifying their evasion of the struggle; for it is advanced as
an aim to be realized without a revolutionary victory over imperialism
and dispensing with the need for its overthrow.
Democratic Rights
With the development of the mass political struggle in India since the
beginning of the century, British Imperialism has instituted a system of
repressive legislation, progressively inaugrating a gendarme regime not
less systematic and ruthless than that of Russian Czarism or German
Fascism. Since the commencement of the imperialist war repression
has been many times intensified. Even those nominal rights previously
possessed by the masses have been openly withdrawn, and a naked rule
of terror substituted through the Defence of India Act, administered by
a bureaucracy discarding every pretence of constitutional government.
The press has been gagged by a series of iniquitous Press Acts and a
systematic police censorship of all publications. Rights of free speech
and assembly have been so curtailed that they are practically nonexistent. Radical and revolutionary political parties are compelled to
lead an underground existence. Even the formation and functioning of
mass organizations, such as trade unions and kisan sabhas, is seriously
hampered by innumerable restrictions on their working, by the
persecution of their members, and by the frequent illegalization of the
organizations themselves. The right-to-strike no longer exists in all
"essential war industries," and elsewhere is so fettered by arbitrary
legislation as to be practically non-existent. Thousands of militant mass
leaders have been imprisoned on flimsy pretexts or detained without
trial. The restriction of individual movement by means of externment
314
and internment orders has become a commonplace. The spearhead of

these repressive actions has been directed against the working class and
its allies the peasantry, and they have as their special aim the beheading
of the mass movement against imperialism.
The widespread hostility towards British Imperialism among all
oppressed sections in India, and the fact that in their economic
struggles the masses daily collide with the repressive machinery of the
government, gives to the struggle, for democratic rights in the prerevolutionary stage, an ever increasing revolutionary potency. The
Bolshevik-Leninist Party must prepare the proletariat to lead the
democrl!tic struggle of all oppressed sections with the aim of directing
it towards the general assault on British Imperialism. The BolshevikLeninist Party therefore advances the following transitional demands:
RELEASE OF ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH, PRESS AND ASSOCIATION.
REPEAL OF ALL REPRESSIVE LAWS.
The struggle for democratic rights assumes a special importance in
the Native States in view of the fact that the most elementary civil
rights have always been openly denied to the masses of the people by
the feudal despotism. These Indian States have long lost all semblance
of historical justification and are maintained artificially by British
Imperialism solely as bastions of support for itself scattered throughout
India. Hence every form of feudal tyranny is tolerated and supported
by the British in the Native States, and their rulers have been repeatedly
defended by British arms against the revolts of the oppressed masses,
especially of the exploited peasantry. The party puts forward as a
transitional demand the slogan of the COMPLETE
DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE NATIVE STATES. The struggle of
the masses in the Native States against their rulers will inevitably draw
them into the struggle against British Imperialism on which the rulers
are utterly and directly dependent. Consequently, it is impossible to
view the two struggles in the Indian States and in British India in crosssections. Furthermore, the fermentation that the Indian struggle
315
produces and has produced in the Native States, only reinforces the
closeness and even identity of the two movements.
Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours
Two basic afflictions in which are summarized the increasing absurdity

of the capitalist system: unemployment and high prices, demand
generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India declares uncompromising
war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree,
like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole
burden of militarism, crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system
and all other scourges flowing from capitalism's death agony upon the
backs of the toilers. The Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India demands
employment and decent living conditions for all.
Against the bounding rise in prices caused by the war, one can
fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that
collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in
proportion to the increase in prices of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot
permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into
chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling
society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the
worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being
shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, "structural" as
well as "conjunctural," the time is ripe to advance along with the
slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours.
Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and
the unemployed together in a solidarity of mutual responsibility. On
this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all
existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working
week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same
as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed
minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to
accept any other programme for the present catastrophic period.
316
The 1iYJtskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands, inevitably

arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish.
"Realizability" or "unrealizability" are in the given instance a question
of the relationship offorces, which can be decided only by the struggle.
By means of this struggle, no matter what its immediate practical
successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the
necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
Trade Unions in the Transitional Epoch
The Bolshevik-Leninists stand in the front-line trenches of all kinds of

struggles, even when they involve the modest material interests or
democratic rights of the working class. They take active part in mass
trade unions for the purpose of strengthening them and raising their
spirit of militancy. They fight uncompromisingly against any attempt
to subordinate the unions to the bourgeois state and bind the proletariat
to "compulsory arbitration" and every other form of police
guardianship.
At the same time the Bolshevik-Leninist Party resolutely rejects
and condemns trade union fetishism. Trade unions, even the most
powerful, embrace no more than 25% of the working class in any
capitalist country, and at that predominantly the more skilled and better
paid layers. This percentage is even smaller in the colonial conditions
of India. For, the inability and unwillingness of the Imperialist and
Indian bourgeoisie alike to grant concessions has hindered the
development of a stable trade union movement, and repression, with
which every attempt at independent proletarian organization is met, is
a formi4able obstacle to the growth of trade unions. The more
oppressed majority of the working class is drawn only episodically into
the struggle, during a period of exceptional upsurges in the labor
movement. Dur-ing such moments, it is necessary to create
organizations, ad hoc, embracing the whole fighting mass: Strike
Committees, Factory Committees, and finally, Soviets.
Therefore the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India should always try
not only to renew the top leadership of the trade unions, boldly and
317
resolutely in critical moments, advancing new militant leaders in place

of routine functionaries and careerists; but also to create in all possible
instances, independent militant organizations corresponding more
closely to the problems of mass struggle against bourgeois society; not
stopping, if necessary, even in the face of a direct break with the
conservative apparatus of the trade unions. If it be criminal to turn
one's back to mass organizations for the sake of fostering sectarian
fictions, it is no less so to passively tolerate subordination of the
revolutionary mass movement to the control of openly reactionary or
disguised conservative ("progressive") bureaucratic cliques. Trade
unions are not ends in themselves; they are but means along the road to
proletarian revolution.
Factory Committees
During a transitional epoch the workers' movement does not have a

systematic and well-balanced but a feverish and explosive character.
Slogans as well as organizational forms should be subordinated to the
indices of the moment. The leadership should respond sensitively to
the initiative of the masses. Sit-down-strikes, the latest phenomena of
this kind of initiative, go beyond the limits of "normal" capitalist
procedure. Independently of the demands of the strikers, the temporary
seizure of factories deals a blow to the idol-capitalist property. Every
sit-down-strike poses in a practical manner the question of who is the
boss of the factory: the capitalist or the workers?
If the sit-down-strike raises this question episodically, the factory
committee gives it organized expression. Elected by all the factory
employees, the factory committee immediately creates a counterweight
to the will of the administration. The prime significance of the factory
committee lies in the fact that it becomes the militant staff for such
working class layers as the trade union is usually incapable of moving
into action. It is precisely from these more oppressed layers that the
most self-sacrificing battalions of the revolution will come.
From the moment that the committee makes its appearance, a
factual dual power is established in the factory. By its very essence, it
318
The Trotskyist Movement in Iridia and eeylon
represents the transitional state because it includes in itself two

irreconcilable regimes: the capitalist and the proletarian. The
fundamental significance of the factory committee is precisely
contained in the fact that, they open the doors if not to a direct
revolutionary, then to a pre-revolutionary period between the bourgeois
and the proletarian regimes. That the propagation of the factory
committee idea is neither premature nor artificial is attested to by the
fact that sit-down-strikes have already taken place in India. Waves of
this type will be inevitable in the immediate future. It is necessary to
begin a campaign on favor of factory committees in order not to be
caught unawares.
Unemployment
The struggle against unemployment is not to be considered without

calling for a broad and bold organization of public works. But public
works have a continuous and progressive significance for society, as
for the unemployed themselves, only when they are made part of a
general plan, worked out to cover a considerable number of years.
Within the framework of this plan, the workers would demand
resumption, as public utilities, of work in private businesses closed as
a result of the war. Workers control in such cases would be replaced by
direct workers' management.
Expropriation of Capitalists in Certain Industries
The socialist programme of expropriation, that is, of political

overthrow of the bourgeoisie and liquidation of its economic
domination should in no case during the present transitional period
hinder us from advancing, when the occasion warrants, the demand for
the expropriation of certain key branches of industry vital for national
existence or of the most parasitic group of the bourgeoisie.
The difference between these demands and the muddle-headed
reformist slogan of "nationalization" lies in the following: (1) We reject
compensation; (2) we warn the masses against demagogues who,
giving lip service to nationalization, remain in reality agents of capital;
319
(3) we call upon the masses to rely only upon their own revolutionary
strength; (4) we link up the question of expropriation with that of the
seizure of power by the workers.
The Peasantry
The party actively supports all concrete struggles of the peasantry

against exploitation and oppression, including struggles for the
reduction of land revenue and rent, reduction of debt and the abolition
of feudal dues, forced labor, serfdom etc. It participates in the activities
of Kisan Sabhas and all genuine peasant organizations as
representatives of the revolutionary proletariat, popularising its own
programme in relation to the peasantry, and seeking to lay foundations
of the worker-peasant alliance which is the indispensable condition of
the victory of the Indian revoluti9n. Above all, it seeks to expose the
reactionary role of the Congress and to wean away the peasantry from
the influence of the bourgeoisie, pointing out that not one of the
fundamental demands of the peasantry will ever be conceded by the
bourgeoisie and that it is only with the leadership and assistance of the
proletariat standing in opposition to vested interests of all the
exploiters, that these demands can be fulfilled. The party seeks to link
up each concrete struggle of the peasants with the general political
struggle against imperialism-a task rendered easier by the direct role
of repression and extortion played by the imperialist bureaucracy.
Finally, the party will pay special attention to the interests of the more
oppressed and down-trodden sections of the peasantry, and, as these
layers increasingly come to consciousness, will help them to formulate
and come forward with their own special demands.
In the initial phase of the agrarian upsurge, the slogan of
ABOLITION OF LANDLORDISM without compensation is likely to
rally behind it the middle peasantry drawing with them considerable
numbers of the more oppressed sections of the peasant masses. The
party accordingly advances the slogan of "Abolition of landlordism
without compensation."
320
The abolition of landlordism alone, however, will not meet the

needs of the lowest and most exploited layers of the peasantry
(agricultural laborers and landless peasants). But as the struggle
develops, these sections will become increasingly articulate and will
come forward with their own demands involving a more thoroughgoing solution of the agrarian problem. Accordingly, in proportion as
the agrarian struggle deepens with the coming into consciousness of
these layers, the party increasingly advances the slogan of LAND TO
THE TILLERS OF THE SOIL, which connotes a more thorough-going
and radical redistribution of the land.
The party puts forward the slogan of LIQUIDATION OF
AGRICULTURAL INDEBTEDNESS, which is capable of uniting all
sections of the exploited peasantry in the agrarian struggle.
Soldiers
The rank and file of the Indian Army is recruited almost exclusively
from the peasantry and increasingly from its more depressed and
backward strata. By a policy of carefully segregating the army from the
mass of the population and of making invidious distinction between socalled martial and non-martial races, British Imperialism attempts to
keep the army immune from the political ferment in the country. The
soldiers, however, being mainly peasants in uniform, are naturally
sensitive to peasant demands and cannot fail to be affected by an
agrarian upsurge in the country. Since the attitude of the soldiers is of
decisive importance in every revolution, the Bolshevik-Leninist Party
must face the urgent task of widespread revolutionary propaganda
(against imperialism and the imperialist war and on the land question)
in the Indian Army. It must link up this propaganda with the concrete
grievances of the soldiers-the unsatisfactory conditions of service,
their despatch for wars abroad, etc. This task, which has been
immensely facilitated by the increased accessibility of the soldiers in
the prevailing war conditions (the quartering of troops amidst the
civilian population, frequent movement of troops, etc.), becomes all the
more urgent with the heavy recruitments that are increasingly being
made for the purposes of the imperialist war.
321
However, under the very strict conditions of discipline that obtain

in the army, the possibility of carrying on partial struggles is practically
non-existent. The vital need is for a broad central slogan which will
provide a focal point for all the specific demands of the soldiers, and
thus rally them at a time when the repercussions of the class struggle in
the country or the lowering of the soldiers' morale through military
defeats is breaking down the discipline of the army. Accordingly, the
Bolshevik-Leninist Party, whilst carrying on the widest revolutionary
propaganda among the soldiers by all means within its power, advances
the transitional slogan of SOLDIERS COMMITTEES to put forward
all demands of the rank and file and to act on their behalf.
Students
The Bolshevik-Leninist Party recognises that students, particularly in

India, where, for the most part they come from all strata of a petty
bourgeoisie that is fast heading for pauperization and ruin, are a
valuable source of cadres for the revolutionary movement.
Nevertheless, the student body is not a homogenous one performing a
separate social role, or capable of interfering independently in politics.
The Bolshevik-Leninist Party can attach no serious significance to the
"independent" mobilization of students for the realization of
"specifically student demands," as the Stalinists and other radicals of
various shades are attempting to do. The party's own aim is to draw
students into the revolutionary political movement, and with this aim it
works in existing student organizations and participates in the agitation
for student demands. Nor is it a question of setting up revolutionary
student organizations, but of doing revolutionary propaganda among
the students. Further, the existing student organizations offer to a
limited extent a platform for political propaganda which can reach wide
strata of those engaged in the national political movement. Hence, the
Bolshevik-Leninist Party will utilise to the full all opportunities of
advancing its own programme on the platform of student
organizations-not however, as a "student program" but as that of the
revolutionary proletariat.
322
The Trotslcyist Movement in India and Ceylon
Soviets
Factory Committees, as already stated, are elements of dual power

inside the factory. Consequently, their existence is possible only under
condition of increasing pressure by the masses. This is likewise true of
special mass groupings, such as peasants' committees for the seizure of
land, soldiers' committees, etc. that may arise for struggle, the very
appearance of which bears witness to the fact that the class-struggle
has overflowed the limits of the traditional mass organizations.
These new organs and centers, however, will soon begin to feel
their lack of cohesion and insufficiency. Not one of the transitional
demands can be fully met under the conditions of preserving the
imperialist regime. At the same time, the deepening of the social crisis,
enormously accentuated by the war, will increase not only the
sufferings of the masses but also their impatience, persistence and
pressure. Millions of toil-worn "little men," to whom the reformist
leaders never gave a thought, will begin to pound insistently on the
doors of the workers' organizations. The unemployed will join the
movement. The peasant masses, the soldiers, the oppressed layers of
the cities, the women workers, proletarianized layers of the
intelligentsia-all of these will seek unity and leadership. As the
struggle moves ever more openly in the direction of civil war, and as
the fullest resources of the counter-revolutionary terror are mobilized
by the government, the prime need will be for the co-ordination and
centralization of the vast and increasing forces daily awakening to
consciousness and struggle.
Such a form of organization is required as will harmonize, coordinate and centralize the different demands and forms of the
revolutionary struggle. In marshalling the mass forces during this
critical period, the working class must necessarily take the lead, guided
by its party in adapting the lessons of its own revolutionary experiences
in the European and Chinese arenas to the problems of the Indian
revolution. The main form of mass organization for the concrete battles
to smash British Imperialism in India will be the Soviets; revolutionary
councils of workers, peasants and soldiers delegates, elected on the
widest possible franchise of the exploited, subject to immediate recall,
323
and therefore voicing with the least distortion the ever sharpening
demands of the masses in the struggle. The soviets will concretize the
worker-peasant alliance.
Soviets are not limited to an "a priori" programme. The
organization, broadening out together with the movement, is renewed
again and again in its womb. All political currents of the proletariat can
struggle for the leadership of the proletariat on the basis of the widest
democracy. The slogan of Soviets therefore crowns the programme of
transitional demands.
Soviets can arise only when the mass movement enters an open
revolutionary stage. From the first moment of their appearance the
soviets, acting as a pivot around which millions of toilers are united in
their struggle against the exploiters, become competitors and opponents
of local authorities and then of the central government. The soviets
initiate a period of dual power in the country.
Dual power in its turn is the culminating point of the transitional
period. Two regimes, the dictatorship of the imperialist bourgeoisie and
the dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the peasantry, stand
irreconcilably opposed to each other. The fate of India depends on the
outcome. Should th:e revolution be defeated, the fascist dictatorship of
the imperialist bourgeoisie will follow. In case of victory, the power of
the soviets, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat will be established
and the road to the socialist transformation of Indian society will be
opened.
With the entry of the struggle into the open revolutionary stage the
Bolshevik-Leninist Party calls for:
THE FORMATION OF WORKERS' SOVIETS.
THE FORMATION OF A WORKERS' MILITIA.
THE SEIZURE BY THE WORKERS OF FACTORIES, BANKS,
PLANTATIONS, ETC.
THE DIRECT SEIZURE OF THE LAND BY PEASANT
COMMITTEES.
324
The Trolskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PEASANT POOR IN

PEASANT SOVIETS AND OF THE SOLDIERS IN SOLDIERS'
SOVIETS.
THE ARMED OVERTHROW OF IMPERIALIST RULE.
SECTION 5. INTERNATIONAL
The Crisis of Imperialism and the Imperialist War
The working class ofIndia, like their fellow-workers all over the world,
are today in the throes of the Second Imperialist World War. From the
time when, expanding imperialism partitioned up the world into
colonies and spheres of influence, alterations in the relative strength of
rival imperialisms led to new armed struggles for the redistribution of
colonies in accordance with the new correlations of power. But, the
First Imperialist World War of 1914-18, which forced every
Imperialism to enter the arena, signalled the entry of World Capitalism
into the stage of permanent decline.
From this bitter conflict, in which millions of lives were sacrificed
and vast productive forces squandered, World Imperialism emerged,
not merely exhausted by the war, but permanently weakened by the
defeat of Russian Czardom not by an imperialist enemy but by the
Russian working class. When the Russian workers transformed the
imperialist war into civil war and overthrew their capitalist rulers, they
broke the chain of world capitalism and inaugurated an era of
international revolution. But, thanks to the treacherous role of the
Social Democratic parties and the failure of revolutionary parties to
mature swiftly in the fire of events, the post-war revolutionary upsurge
of the workers of Europe was defeated, and world capitalism hastened
to rebuild itself. The war of 1914-18, far from solving the crisis of
declining capitalism, reproduced these same problems in a more
accentuated form. The post-war period was one of constant economic
and political crisis in the capitalist world and of unparalleled
destitution and exploitation forthe toiling masses. British and French
Imperialisms largely transferred the weight of this crisis on to the backs
325
of their colonial peoples. Other capitalist structures, as in Italy,

Germany and Japan, survived only by throwing the whole burden of
the crisis on their own working class, through that form of the
dictatorship of finance-capital known as Fascism, under which, all
independent organizations of the workers are suppressed and their
exploitation pitilessly increased.
Under Fascist dictatorships, these younger imperialisms annexed
all that could be annexed by aggression against weak or backward
countries (Japanese invasion of China, Italian annexation of Abyssinia,
German seizure of Austria and Czecho-Slovakia). But, these
annexations only served to sharpen the rivalry between the newer and
younger imperialisms forced to expand, and the older established
imperialisms obstructing their growth; since, on the one hand, they
roused the jealousy and suspicion of the older imperialisms, while on
the other hand, they by no means solved the imperialist-expansionist
problems of the younger imperialisms. This inter-imperialist rivalry
reached its logical culmination, war, in September 1939, with the
commencement of open hostilities between Germany-the most
powerful of the younger imperialisms-and Anglo-French Imperialisms,
in a struggle for the redistribution of colonies and for world
domination. Thus commenced the Second Imperialist World War.
Already major military events have altered the balance of power.
The German armies have over-run the continent of Europe. The
invasion of France and military defeat of French Imperialism have
taken place. Italy has entered the war on the side of the German
Imperialists. The U.S.A, the largest and most powerful capitalist state
in the modem world, has ranged herself on the side of Britain in the
Imperialist conflict. Seeking a solution for the insoluble problems of
the era of permanent world capitalist decline, which she entered in
1929, U.S.A. Imperialism has been compelled to enter the struggle in
order, after the defeat of Germany, to secure her own world domination
as the only way out of the economic impasse. Japanese Imperialism,
conflicting with the interests of British and American Imperialisms in
the Far East, entered the struggle in order to secure for herself the
extension and consolidation of her Empire in the Pacific.
326
M.N. Roy and his radical democrats, as well as a number of trade

union bureaucrats who, together with the social chauvinists in the
"democratic" countries, have entered into the open service of the
imperialist bourgeoisie, are seeking to maintain that the above conflict
is not an imperialist war but a war of Democracy against Fascism. But,
in the face of the experience of the intensified repression with which
British Imperialism is today attempting to maintain her stranglehold
over the empire, there is no necessity to demonstrate that the
Imperialists are fighting one another not for political principles but for
domination over the world under cover of any principles that will suit
their purpose. To substitute political or moral abstractions for the actual
aims of the warring imperialist camps, is not to fight for democracy but
to help the brigands to disguise their robbery, pillage and violence.
With the mass slaughter, the unparalleled destruction and untold
sufferings entailed by the war, the international proletariat and the
oppressed masses of the colonies are being driven to the point where
they will see in revolution the only way out. "The chief enemy of the
people is in its own country." The prime task of proletarian
revolutionaries in the present imperialist conflict is to follow the policy
of revolutionary defeatism in relation to their "own" government and
to help develop the class struggle to the point of civil war regardless of
the possibility of such a course leading to the defeat of one's "own"
imperialist government, brought about, or hastened by the
revolutionary movement of the masses, is an incomparably "lesser evil"
than victory gained at the price of the political prostration of the
proletariat.
International developments are governed by two main
contradictions. The first is the contradiction of the existence of a
workers' state (the Soviet Union) in a capitalist world. The second is
the inter-imperialist rivalry which has now broken out openly into war.
Admittedly it is the decline of the world revolutionary movement,
thanks to the reactionary and counter-revolutionary policies of the
Comintern bureaucracy, which enabled the inter-imperialist rivalry to
assume greater magnitude than the former contradiction and to lead to
the outbreak of the imperialist war. The only obstacle in the path of
327
war was the fear of the property-owning classes of revolution. It is

precisely because they felt themselves immune from imminent danger
of such an upheaval that the imperialists have dared to plunge the world
into a holocaust of slaughter. But the supercession of the capitalistworkers' state antagonism by the inter-imperialist antagonism and the
temporary postponement of a united capitalist war of intervention
against the Soviet Union by no means removed the danger of an attack
on the Soviet Union by one of the parties in the inter-imperialist
embroilment. War has a logic of its own, as is borne out by the attack
on the Soviet Union by Germany. Nor has the danger of a united
capitalist war of intervention against the Soviet Union been indefinitely
postponed. The capitalist-workers' state antagonism which is today
temporarily in the background may, however, at any moment in the
course ofthe present war, assume the greater importance; in which case
peace at the expense of the Soviet Union and a united capitalist war of
intervention would be on the order of the day. Further, even in the event
of the military defeat of Germany, the danger of a capitalist overturn in
the USSR, either through the Stalinist bureaucracy becoming an agency
of Anglo-American Imperialism, or through an interventionist war
against the Soviet Union, would arise immediately.
The Working Class, the Soviet Union, and the War
The working class of Russia seized power in October 1917 and

established the dictatorship of the proletariat. But with the defeats of
the post-war revolutionary movements, the workers of the USSR,
isolated in a capitalist world, have had to battle against the most
tremendous odds. Externally they are surrounded by capitalist enemies
who have the destruction of the workers' state as a fundamental aim.
Internally the backwardness of the country and the failure of the
support that only the World Revolution could have brought them, have
together paved the way for the growth of a bureaucracy that stands in
opposition to the interests of the working class both in the USSR and in
the rest of the world. This bureaucracy, headed by Stalin, which has
imprisoned, expelled, persecuted and murdered the proletarian
vanguard representing the true historical interests of the proletariat,
came to power by corrupting the Bolshevik Party and converting it into
328
a bureaucratic instmment, as well as by bureaucratising the Soviets

which have today been juridically liquidated under the New
Constitution.
By these means the bureaucracy has expropriated the workers of
the Soviet Union of political power. Their single aim is the
maintenance of their own power and privileged position, at whatever
cost to the world revolutionary movement and the Soviet Union itself.
Disguising this real aim with the un-Marxian theory of "Socialism in
one country," they have converted the Comintern into an instmment of
their foreign policy and utilized it even to the extent of sabotaging the
struggles of the workers in other countries (China, Spain, France), thus
betraying the real defence of the Soviet Union. Today, with their
bureaucratic inefficiency and reactionary policies, they have brought
the very existence of the USSR into extreme danger. Having long since
abandoned the path of international revolution, which is the only real
and ultimate defence of the USSR, the bureaucracy has followed a
policy of placing its trust for this defence solely on its military
resources and upon pacts with capitalist governments. The bankruptcy
of the policy is tragically revealed today, with the Soviet Union bearing
the full brunt of the German interventionist attack, while her only real
and dependable ally, the international proletariat, disoriented,
disorganized, and immeasurably weakened by the criminal policies of
the Comintern bureaucracy, lies prostrate under the heel of Fascism or
deceived by the democratic prating of the Anglo-American bourgeoisie.
Nevertheless, the chief gains of the October Revolution, the
nationalization of banks and industries and the monopoly of foreign
trade, still remain, and have made possible the striking economic
progress in the USSR, which contrasts markedly with the continued
post-war crises of the capitalist world. The victory of the Bonapartist
bureaucracy of the USSR over the proletarian vanguard is by no means
equivalent to the victory of the capitalist counter-revolution, although
the former blazes the trial for the latter. The Soviet bureaucracy, which
is not a new ruling class but a ruling caste, plays a dual role, and has
hitherto been forced to defend the social bases of the workers' state as
the basis of their own power and position, although they can do so only
329
both bureaucratically and inefficiently. The USSR therefore, though a

degenerate workers' state, remains the first real conquest of the World
proletarian revolution, and its unconditional defence against imperialist
attack remains the imperative task of the world proletariat. The defeat
of the Soviet Union would signify not only the collapse of the Soviet
bureaucracy, but also the wiping away of the conquests of October, and
the re-introduction of capitalism. The proletarian vanguard of the entire
world supports the Soviet Union in her war against German
Imperialism in spite of the parasitic bureaucracy and the un-crowned
Negus in the Kremlin, because the social regime of the USSR despite
all its deformations and ulcers represents an enormous historical step
forward in comparison with putrefied capitalism.
But the parties of the Fourth International, while defending the
Soviet Union from imperialist attack, do not for a single moment give
up the struggle against the Stalinist apparatus. Incapable of carrying out
the real defence of the Soviet Union, the Stalinist bureaucracy seeks
the aid not of the international proletariat, but exclusively of AngloAmerican Imperialism. The possibility cannot be ignored of this policy
leading to the Stalinist bureaucracy becoming the agents of the AngloAmerican Imperialists for the destruction of the monopoly of foreign
trade in the Soviet Union and its ultimate conversion into an appendage
of Anglo-American Imperialism. The workers' state will be able to
emerge victorious from the holocaust of war only under one condition,
and that is, if it is assisted by the revolution in the West or in the East.
But the international revolution, the only way of saving the Soviet
Union, will at the same time 'signify the death-blow for the Soviet
bureaucracy.
Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union has produced the situation of a
mixed war, in which Germany is waging on the one hand an imperialist
war against rival imperialisms, and on the other hand a war of
intervention against the Soviet Union. In this situation the Soviet Union
finds herself in a military alliance with Britain. Guided by her own
imperialist interests, British Imperialism has entered into this alliance
and is rendering military aid to the Soviet Union only because the
exigencies of the struggle against German Imperialism compel her to
330
The Trotskyist Movement ill India alld Ceylon
do so, and only in expectation of later undermining and destroying the

conquests of October.
This situation does not alter for a moment the implacable hostility
of the Indian proletariat to British Imperialism and the Imperialist war.
The policy of the Indian proletariat should continue to be one of
intensification and prosecution of the class struggle directed towards
the overthrow of the Imperialist bourgeoisie and the seizure of power.
However, it is the duty of the Indian proletariat, at the same time, to
render all independent aid within its power to the Soviet Union in her
struggle against German Imperialism. That is to say, all such aid should
be given under the direct control of working class organizations and
not the imperialist state machine. But in the nature of practical actions,
the proletariat should be prepared to make an exception so as directly
not to hamper the aid that may be rendered to the USSR by the
imperialists in the form of the sending of arms, supplies and
technicians. But the proletariat must continue its policy of opposition
to the entire imperialist war machine and can make no exception in this
opposition in regard to the supply of imperialist troops to the Soviet
war front. For not only is any support of the imperialist war machine
tantamount to the indefinite postponement of the perspective of the
seizure of power, and thus an abandonment of the only real and
effective defence of the Soviet Union, but these conscripted slaves of
capital sent to the Soviet Union under the command of the imperialist
generals would furnish the imperialists with a Trojan Horse for use
against the revolutionary workers of the USSR and for effecting a
capitalist overturn.
It is true that independent proletarian support to the Soviet Union
can take on a decisive scope only when the levers of power and
economy are in the hands of the Indian proletariat. But the solution for
this not the abandonment of the class struggle but its intensification
and orientation towards the seizure of power which is the only means
by which the real defence of the Soviet Union can be assured.
The line at present being imposed by the Comintern on its sections

in the "democratic" countries and their colonies, of supporting the
"democratic" imperialisms against the fascists in the imperialist war, is
331
a betrayal of the interests of the international proletariat including the

proletariat of the Soviet Union, and serves only the interests of the
Soviet bureaucracy who hate and dread the prospect of international
revolution. But it is the international revolution alone that can save the
Soviet Union. And to abandon the tactic, of revolutionary defeatism,
one of the strongest levers of the proletarian revolution in time of war,
is tantamount to abandoning the path of world revolution, shamelessly
betraying the interests of the international proletariat, and sacrificing
the real defence of the Soviet Union.
The Second International
The Social Democracy bears the historic responsibility for the failure
of the World Revolution at the close of the First Imperialist World War
and in the years immediately following. Formed in 1889, the Second
International was a loose federation of the majority of the Social
Democratic parties of Europe. Though freely using the name and
ideology of Marx, the parties of the Second International, basing
themselves on a privileged upper stratum of workers and on sections of
the petty bourgeoisie, who are bribed by concessions made possible by
colonial exploitation and plunder, increasingly followed a policy of
opportunism. On the outbreak of the Imperialist War, the opportunism
of peace-time gave place to the most rabid social-chauvinism, and they
wholeheartedly supported their own governments in the imperialist /
carnage. And in the revolutionary upsurge at the close of the war, they
became indispensable instruments in the hands of the bourgeoisie for
arresting and defeating the revolution and preserving the dictatorship
of finance-capital. Today these agents of the bourgeoisie are repeating
their betrayal of the workers' struggle by supporting the bourgeoisie of
the "democratic" countries in the Imperialist War.
In India, the supporters of the Second International (Mehta, Aftab
Ali & Co.) play even a viler role than their western counterparts,
becoming as they do, the agents of the imperialist bourgeoisie in the
ranks of the colonial workers.
332
The Third International
The need for a revolutionary International to replace the effete Second

International led to the formation of the Communist (Third)
International in March 1919 on the direct initative of Lenin. From 1919
to 1923 the Comintern represented the truly revolutionary elements of
the international working class. In these years the Comintern, under the
theoretical guidance of Lenin and Trotsky, was a powerful weapon in
the hands of the international proletariat in the cause of World
Revolution. The decisions of the first four world congresses of the
Comintern provided an invaluable guide to the international proletariat
and are valid to this day.
But with the rise of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union with its
abandonment of the path of world revolution in favor of the impossible
aim of building socialism in one country, the Comintern itself was
transformed into an instrument of the Soviet bureaucracy, and entered
a period of progressive degeneration and decline. The ultra-leftist
policy of adventurism and putschism pursued by the Comintern in the
years 1924-25 (at a time when the European working class movement
had entered a period of ebb), was responsible for crushing defeats of
the European proletariat. A rightward swing followed in the years
1925-27 (in which period the Stalinist bureaucracy was leaning on the
kulak and the Nepman in the Soviet Union in its struggle against the
proletarian wing of the party). This opportunist policy led to the fiasco
of the Anglo-Russian Committee, which served as a cloak for the
British trade union bureaucracy to hide their betrayal in the General
Strike of 1926, and was responsible for the strengthening of the hold of
the reactionary trade union bureaucracy over the British proletariat.
This same policy was responsible for the tragic fate of the Chinese
Revolution (1925-27), where the young Communist Party of China was
tied firmly to the boot-strings of the Kuomintang, and the workers and
peasants delivered, bound hand and foot; to the bloody vengeance of
the Chinese bourgeoisie.
In 1927-28 the proletarian wing of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union (the Left Opposition) was expelled from the party and
the organizational victory of the bureaucracy completed. In 1928 the
333
The fl'otskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
bureaucracy was compelled by events to make an abrupt "volte face"

in its policy. It now adopted a policy of ultra-leftism in what is known
as the "third period," in which suddenly a "revolutionary upheaval"
was ordered uniformly on an international scale. In this period Stalinist
bureaucracy operated mainly by commanding the masses with an
ultimatum (bureaucratic ultimatism). The fatal policy of splitting the
trade unions (propagation of the Red Trade Union policy), the revival
of Stalin's absurd theory of Social Fascism, and a total rejection of the
decisions of the 3rd and 4th Congresses with regard to the tactic of the
united front, led to the criminal betrayal of the interests of the
proletarian masses. The biggest defeat that the international proletariat
has suffered in its history occurred in Germany, where the ultra-leftist
policy of considering the Social Democrats the chief enemy led to the
shameful capitulation of the working class without a struggle and the
victory of Fascism. This disastrous policy of rejecting the course of a
united front with the Social Democrats against Hitler found its support
in Soviet Russian foreign policy which saw its task in keeping alive
German-French antagonism in order to stave off intervention from the
west. The miserable collapse of the German Communist Party
delivered the final proof that the Comintern had transformed itself from
a subjective factor of the world revolution into an objective obstacle to
it. From this fact resulted the absolute necessity of building the Fourth
International.
From 1933 onwards it became clear that the Comintern has
degenerated into an abject instrument of the foreign policy of the
Soviet bureaucrats. The infamous policy of class collaboration known
as the "Popular Front" was adopted, and every opportunity presenting
itself was utilized to make an alliance not only with the Social
Democracy but with the liberal bourgeoisie. In return for a military
alliance of the "democratic" imperialisms against the Fascist powers
threatening the Soviet Union, the Comintern shamelessly offered to
'liquidate the class struggle and to become the recruiting agents of the
imperialists in such countries for the coming war.
This reactionary policy led to the liquidation of the revolution in
Spain, where the hired agents of the Comintern, by massacring the
334
revolutionary proletarian vanguard, not only paved the way for Fascism
but executed in advance a goodly share of its labors. In France, the
growing revolutionary wave, which reached its peak in the General
Strike of 1936, was repeatedly stemmed by the Communist Party of
France in the interests of maintaining the Popular Front Government.
By the treacherous policy of Popular Front the Comintern actively
aided the bourgeoisie of Britain and France to draw the workers into
the imperialist war.
With the radical change in the foreign policy of the Soviet Union
consequent on the Russo-German pact of non-aggression, the line of
the Comintern was accordingly changed. The myth of a "war against
Fascism" was now abandoned, and the Comintern, incapable of a
policy of revolutionary defeatism, imposed a policy of military
defeatism on its sections in the Allied countries, which made them not
the representatives of the revolutionary proletariat but in effect the
agents of the German Imperialists. With the attack by Germany on the
Soviet Union, yet another "volte face" has been made, and the masses
in the "democratic" countries and their colonies are being called upon
to support the imperialist war which is claimed to have transformed
itself into a war of the democracies fought for the principles enunciated
in the Atlantic Charter.
The Fourth International
The Third International, following the Second, has completely perished

as an International. Today, the Comintern stands completely exposed
as the counter-revolutionary instrument of the corrupt and parasitic
Soviet bureaucracy, which has disorganized, betrayed and sabotaged
the revolutionary movement ofthe international proletariat and brought
the very existence of the first workers' state into the most extreme
danger. The future of mankind for decades, as the question of the fate
of the first workers' state itself, will be decided in the critical years
ahead in the arena of the international revolution. The international
proletariat will rise again. The Comintern never!
335
The Fourth International is the heir to the great historic tradition

of Marx, Engels and Lenin, continued through Trotsky and the Left
Opposition since 1923. The Fourth International is now the only
international organization which not only clearly takes into account the
driving forces of the imperialist epoch, but is armed with a system of
transitional demands which are capable of uniting the masses for the
revolutionary struggle for power. At present, sections of the Fourth
International exist in thirty countries. True, they are only the vanguard
of the vanguard. But despite the discrepancy between its forces today
and tasks of the morrow, and in spite of the cruelest persecutions of the
imperialist bourgeoisie, the social democracy, and, in particular, of the
Stalinist Mafia culminating in the brutal murder ofTrotsky himself, the
Fourth International is the one uncompromising international
organization which can supply both theoretical guidance and
organizational strength to the revolutionary proletariat. And the harsh
and tragic dialectic of our epoch is working in its favor. Brought to the
extreme pitch of exasperation and indignation the masses will find no
other leadership than that offered them by the Fourth International. Its
tempered cadres will lead the toilers to the great offensive.
Bibliography
The best introduction to the life and thought of Trotsky in English, in
my opinion, remains Isaac Deutscher's three-volume biography. I There
is also a growing body of scholarly literature on the Fourth
International and its many national sections. 2 The bibliography which
follows is limited solely to works relevant to the subject and timeframe
of this book.
GOVERNMENT RECORDS
India Office Library and Records, British Library, London. Public and
Judicial Department Records. Abbreviated in footnote citations as
IOL: LlPJ.
Home (Political) Department Records, National Archives ofIndia, New
Delhi.
Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky. 1879-1921 (New York, 1954); The
Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky. 1921-1929 (London, 1959); and The Prophet Outcast:
Trotsky. 1929-1940 (London, 1963). Since then the volume of "Trotsky studies" has
grown tremendously. The late Pierre Broue, the most eminent Trotsky scholar since
Deutscher, has made a notable contribution with his biography. Pierre Broue, Trotsky
(Paris, 1988). Broue also deserves credit for publishing the first account of the Indian
Trotskyist movement. Pierre Broue, "Notes sur I'Histoire des oppositions et du
mouvement trotskyste en Inde dans la premiere motie du XXe siecle," Cahiers Leon
Trotsky. March 1985, pp. 11-44.
The most complete single work on the Fourth International is Robert J. Alexander,
International Trotskyism 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement
(Durham, 1991). There are several journals which publish specialized research on
various Trotskyist parties and personalities: Cahiers Leon Trotsky (since 1979),
Revolutionary History (since 1988), and Journal of Trotsky Studies (since 1993). There
are also several "Trotsky institutes" which issue publications: In Paris the Centre
d'Etudes et de Recherches sur les Mouvements Trotskyste et Revolutionnaires
Internationaux (CERMTRI) publishes the Cahiers du Mouvement Ouvrfer. In Italy the
Centro Studi Pietro Tresso, founded in 1983, publishes Quaderni Pietro Tresso. In
Buenos Aires the Centro de Estudios, Investigaciones e Publicaciones Le6n Trotsky
publishes the Boletin del CEIP and specialized studies.
337
ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS
Albert Glotzer Papers, Hoover Institution Library and Archives,

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.
Documentary Sources of Labour History in Tamil Nadu, Archives of
Indian Labour, Noida (U.P.), India.
Joseph Hansen Papers, Hoover Institution Library and Archives,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.
Jock Haston Collection, Archives and Special Collections, Brynmor
Jones Library, The University of Hull, England. Abbreviated in
footnote citations as Hull: Haston.
Library of Social History Collection, Hoover Institution Library and
Archives, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. Abbreviated in
footnote citations as Hoover: LSH.
Max Shachtman Papers, The Tamiment Library, New York University,
New York City
Socialist Workers Party Papers, Hoover Institution Library and
Archives, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. Abbreviated in
footnote citations as Hoover: SWP.
Trotsky Papers (Trotskii colI. bMS Russ 13.1), Houghton Library,
Harvard College Library, Cambridge, MA.
TROTSKYIST NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALS
Age Kadam [Forward March]. Fortnightly Hindi press of the Bolshevik

Mazdoor Party. Bombay. 1949.
Bolshevik Leninist. Initially the quarterly journal of the Bolshevik
Mazdoor Party of India, Bombay, published irregularly, 1941;
became quarterly journal of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party ofIndia.
Bombay. May 1942-February 1943; reverted back to the journal of
the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party. Bombay. 1943-46.
Fight. Fortnightly press of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party (Ceylon Unit)
Section of the 4th International. Colombo. November 1945-August
1946.
338
Inkilab [Revolutionj. Bi-monthly Gujarati newspaper of the Gujarat

Committee of the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party (Fourth International).
Ahmedabad.1941-1942.
Janashakti [Peoples Power]. Fortnightly Hindi press of the Bolshevik
Mazdoor Party (Fourth International). Bombay. August 1947March 1948.
Jivan [Life]. Weekly Hindi press ofthe Revolutionary Workers Party of
India. Allahabad. 1948.
Kranti [Revolution}. Illegal Hindi press of the Mazdoor Trotskyist
Party of India. Bombay. 1943.
New Spark. Fortnightly press of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party ofIndia.
Bombay. April 1947-September 1948.
Permanent Revolution. Quarterly journal of the Bengal Committee of
the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India. Calcutta. January 1943January/April 1945.
Revolution. Irregular English press of the Mazdoor Trotskyist Party of
India. 1942.
Samaj [Society]. Weekly Hindi newspaper. Allahabad. 1937-38.
Samasamajist. Weekly English press of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party.
Colombo. 1936-40. Intermittent during WWII. Resumed
November, 1944 as organ of the Lanka Sama SamajaParty, Ceylon
Unit of the Bolshevik Leninist Party ofIndia, Section of the Fourth
International. Colombo. 1945-50.
Socialist. Fortnightly English newspaper of the Mazdoor Trotskyist
Party of India. Bombay. 1948.
Spark. Fortnightly press of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India.
Calcutta. March 1946-July 1946.
Spark. Organ of the Workers Group (Fourth Internationalist). Bombay.
1941.
339
Tanakha [Spark]. Irregular Gujarati newspaper of the Kathiawad

Committee of the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party ofIndia. Bhauvnagar,
n.d.
Workers International News. Journal of the Workers International
League (1938-1944) and Revolutionary Communist Party (194449). London. 1938-49.
PARTY INTERNAL BULLETINS
Internal Bulletin. Published irregularly by the Bolshevik Leninist Party

of India. Bombay, December 1946-September 1948.
Internal Bulletin. Published irregularly by the Bolshevik Leninist Party
ofIndia (Ceylon Unit). Colombo, 1947.
Internal Bulletin. Published irregularly by the Lanka Sama Samaja
Party. Colombo, 1947-48.
PUBLICATIONS OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AND THE BRITISH AND
US SECTIONS
Correspondance Internationaliste. Published by the International

Secretariat of the Fourth International. Paris, 1939.
Fight. Published by the Marxist Group (Trotskyists); became the
Revolutionary Socialist League. London, 1936-38.
Fourth International. Published by the Socialist Workers Party. New
York, 1940-48.
International Bulletin. Published by the American Committee for the
Fourth International [Workers Party]. New York, 1940.
International Bulletin. Published by the Socialist Workers Party. New
York, 1940-41
International Bulletin. Socialist Workers Party. New York, 1940-41.
Labor Action. Published by the Workers Party. New York, 1940-47.
Militant. Published by the Socialist Left of the Labour Party. London,
1942.
'
340
Militant. Published by the Socialist Workers Party. New York, 1937-48.

New International. Published by the Socialist Workers Party. New
York, 1939-40.
New International. Published by the Workers Party. New York, 1940-47.
Quatrieme Internationale. Published by the International Secretariat of
the Fourth International. Paris, 1945-48.
Red Flag. Published by the British Section of the International Left
Opposition; became the Communist League. London, 1933-37.
Press Information Service and Service d'Information et de Presse pour
la Quatrieme Internationale. Published by the International
Secretariat ofthe International Left Opposition. Brussels, 1936-37.
Socialist Appeal. Published by the Revolutionary Communist Party.
London, 1944-49.
Workers International News. Published by the Workers International
League of Great Britain. London, 1938-49.
UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS
Arya, Raj Narayan. "The History ofTrotskyism in India." Unpublished

typescript, signed by author. [1983]. 33 pages.
- - - . "Trotskyist Movement in India." Unpublished typescript,
dated 1983 in author's hand. 22 pages.
D.G [Douglas Garbutt]. "Report on the Fourth International Movement
in India." Internal document, Revolutionary Communist Party of
Great Britain. N. d. [probably late 1946].
Kolpe, S. B. "Interview with Gus" [Transcript of taped interview on
the history of Indian Trotskyism given to Gus Horowitz, SWP]. n.d.
Pal, Gour. "Indian Trotskyism and the Revolutionary Communist
Party." Unpublished typescript. Signed, with corrections and
additions in author's hand, n.d. 108 pages. Section B, "Trotskyist
Parties in India," 8 pages.
341
Perera, N.M. Thotalanga Matiya. Unpublished autobiography, 38pp.

Only first four chapters were written. n.d.
Roy, Ajit. "Reminiscences of Early Days in India and Britain." Tape
recorded in Calcutta for Sam Bornstein, December 1975.
Transcript in collection of the late Al Richardson, London.
[Scott, Lewis]. "Red Passage to India," n.d. [1944]. Typed, 28 pages
[Report by a SWP seaman on his contacts with the underground
Indian Trotskyists in 1944].
PRIMARY SOURCES: BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, AND SELECT ARTICLES
Abhayavardana, Hector. Introduction to Leon Trotsky, Trade Unions in

the Epoch ofImperialist Decay. Indore: Spark Syndicate, 1947.
"Amendment by C.C. ofB.L.P.!. to the last section of the International
April Conference Resolution, entitled 'Our Tasks in the Colonies',"
Internal Bulletin, n.s., n.d. [December 1946-January/February
1947], p. 7; also Quatrieme Internationale, March-April 1947, p. 33.
Dissayaneke, S.B. "Ceylon Letter." Fourth International, July 1948,
pp. 158-59.
Draft Programme of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Indian
Section of the Fourth International. 1942.
"The First Representative Conference of the BLPI" [September 20-25,
1944], Permanent Revolution, vol. 2, nos. 2-3 (April-December
1944), pp. 11-12. Reprinted: "India," Fourth International, April
1945, p. 126.
Fourth International and the Soviet Union. Articles by Leon Trotsky
and Max Shachtman. Fourth Internationalist Library, Vol. 3.
Calcutta: Bolshevik Leninist Party, 1943.
Friends of Trotsky Society, Bombay: published by M.G. Purdy, n.d.
Printed leaflet, 2 pages.
"Gandhi on the Road to Betrayal," July 20, 1944. Reprinted in Fourth
International, October 1944, p. 308.
342
[Goonewardene, L.S.] For an Anti-Imperialist Left Front. An Appeal to

the Left Forces in the Country. Bureau of the Central Committee,
Bolshevik Leninist Party ofIndia. May 20, 1945.
Goonewardene, L.S. The Third International Condemned! Colombo:
Lanka Sama Samaja Party, 1940.
Govindan, C. R. [Colvin R. de Silva]. The Dissolution of the
Comintern. Fourth Internationalist Library, Vo!. 6.Calcutta:
Bolshevik Leninist Party, July 1944.
- - - . First Round of European Socialist Revolution. n.p.

[handwritten date at the end: "February 16, 1945"]. Also original
typed manuscript with handwritten edits, 36 pages.
Grant, E. and Scott, A. The Road to India 50 Freedom; The Permanent
Revolution in India and the Task of the British Working-Class. In
Workers International News [Workers International League of
Great Britain], vo!. 5, nos. 3/4, n.d., pp. 1-23.
Gunawardena, Philip. "British Imperialism on Trial at Kandy" [Speech
by Philip Gunawardena in court.] Mimeographed, 2 pages. n.d.
[1943].
Gunawardena, Philip and Perera, NM. "Indian Struggle: Next Phase,"
[Bombay] [1943].
Hindi mazdur tratskist parti. Karyakram [Workers Trotskyist Party of

India. Program] Author: Comrade Seven [Murray Gow Purdy].
Bombay: Maharashtra Committee, March 1, 1943.
Hindi mazdur tratskivadi parti [Workers' Trotskyist Party of India].
Published by Sitaram B. Kolpe. Bombay [1946]. Also translated
into English.
The Inside Story of Calcutta Demonstrations. [Calcutta] December 20,
1945. Reprinted: "Les fusillades policieres de Calcutta,"
Quatrieme Internationale, August-September, 1946, pp. 57-60;
and Cahiers Leon Trotsky, no. 21, March 1985, pp. 111-15.
343
Karalasingham, V. "Indian Bourgeoisie Bares its Teeth-Repressive

Measures Against Trotskyist Controlled Unions," n.d. [June 1947].
Typed, 2 pages. [reporting on the MLU strike].
- - - . Introduction to Leon Trotsky, The Lesson of Spain. The Last
Warning. Bombay: Spark Syndicate, 1948.
"Letter from India," Fourth International, November 1942, pp. 345-46.
Manickam [Bodi M. Muthiah]. "100,000 Madras Workers Protest
Trotskyist Union Leader's Arrest," n.d. [1947]; reprinted "100.000
grevistes it Madras exigent la liberation d'un dirigeant trotskyste
arrete," Quatrieme Internationale, May-June, 1947, pp. 75-76.
Manifesto of the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party of India. Bombay:

Chandravadan Shukla, 1947.
"Manifesto of the Fourth International," Fourth International, October
1942, pp. 296-301; reprinted Manifesto of the Fourth
International. To the Workers and Peasants of India. Calcutta:
Bengal Committee of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party, 1943.
Mazdoor Trotskyist Party Analyzes the Classes in India and Calls for
Workers and Peasants Revolution. Bombay: Sitaram Kolpe, 1946.
The Mazdoor Trotskyist Party of India. Draft Programme. Issued by
the Provisional Committee of the Mazdoor Trotskyist Party of
India. Calcutta: May 15, 1942.
Mirza, Hakim [Kamalesh Bannerji], "After Thoughts on Dissolution of
the Comintern," Workers International News, vo!. 5, no. 6
(February 1944), pp. 10-13.
Menon, S. Krishna [S.C.C. Anthony Pillai], "The Famine in India,"
Permanent Revolution, vol. 2, no. 1 (January-March 1944)];
reprinted in Fourth International, October 1944, pp. 314ff.
Ministry-Makers and "Leftist "-Fakers. n.p., April 1945; reprinted

Fourth International July 1945, pp. 199-200.
344
Morarji, Suren [Hector Abhayavardhana]. The Saboteur Strategy of the

Constructive Programme. [Mysore] Bolshevik Leninist Party of
India [1945].
Parthasarathi, V.S. [Leslie Goonewardene]. Marxist Study Course.
Calcutta: Gupta Rahman & Gupta, 1945.
[Perera, Selina] "An Interview with a Comrade: Ceylonese Masses Want
No Part ofthe Bosses War," Socialist Appeal, November 10, 1939.
"The Programme for Ceylon: Appendix to Program of the BolshevikLeninist Party of India on the Tasks of Ceylon," reprinted in
Fourth International, October 1946, pp. 316-19; "The Marxist
Movement in Ceylon: Appendix to Program of Bolshevik Leninist
Party of India," reprinted in New International [New York],
February 1947, pp. 46-50.
Purdy, Murray Gow. Bolshevik-Leninist-Trotskyist Draft Provisional
Programme. Signed "Yarrumji Eedrupji" [Murray Purdy spelled
backwards with the suffix ''ji'']. [Bombay, 1938].
- - - . Constituent Assembly: Is it Possible in India? And its

Alternative. A Marxist-Trotskyist Analysis. Surat: Surya Printing
Press, n.d.
- - - . Introduction to Lenin 50 Last Testament. Bombay: M.o. Purdy,
1940.
- - - . (ed.) Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto. Surat: Surya
Printing Press, 1942.
- - - . "Provisional draft programme of the Bolshevik-LeninistsTrotskyists of the Indian Empire. Declaration." Bombay [1938].
Appended to letter from Murray Gow Purdy to [James P.] Cannon
and [Max] Shachtinan, dated "Beginning of December, 1938."
Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMS Russ 13 .1 (document
15281).
- - - . The South African Indian Problem-A Revolutionary Solution.

Bombay: S.K. Kombrabail, 1943. Foreword dated August 1942.
345
Rafiq [Chandravadan Shukla]. Permanent Revolution and India.

Bolshevik Mazdoor Party of India. [ca. 1943]. Includes
"Fundamental Theses of Permanent Revolution" by L.D. Trotsky.
- - - . "Proletarian Leadership of the Indian Revolution," Bolshevik
Leninist, vol. 2, no. 2 (November 1943), pp. 1-2ff; reprinted
Proletarian Leadership of the Indian Revolution. Bolshevik
Mazdoor Party Publishing House [ca. 1943-44].
Reissner, Larissa. Svyazhsk: An Epic of the Russian Civil War, 1918.
Reprint. Colombo: Bolshevik Leninist Party, August 1948.
"The Road to Freedom for Ceylon" [Section of the 1941 program],
reprinted in Fourth International, April 1942, pp. 117-18.
Roy, Ajit. In Defence of the Colonial Revolution. Revolutionary
Communist Party [UK], n.d.
- - - . Why the Communist Party Takes a New Turn. Calcutta: D.
Bose [1948].
Roy, Lily [Colvin R. de Silva]. Socialism Reaffirmed: a Reply to Mr.
Masani. n.p., 1944. Also serialized in Fourth International, March,
April, and May 1945.
Selvaraj, G. The Meaning of the Simla Surrender. Madras. n.d. [1946].
Sen, Indra. Jai Prakash and the Road to Socialism. Antony Pillai, 1947.
- - - . "The Road to Socialism in India: An Answer to the Congress
Socialists," reprinted in Fourth International, June 1947, pp. 18284.
Shukla, Chandravadan. Ninth August Betrayed. Bombay: Age Kadam
Prakashan, 1949.
- - - . Samyavad ane hind [Communism and India]. Ahmedabad:
Majoor Sahitya Prachar Sabha, 1939.
- - - . Socialistic Pattern? Ahmedabad: Age Kadam Publishers, 1955.
- - - . Introduction to B. Hunter, Is Russia Moving to Communism?
[Bombay] Age Kadam Publication No. 2, 1949.
346
de Silva, Colvin R. Against Helotry. Being two speeches on the

Citizenship Bill and the Immigrants & Emigrants Bill. Colombo:
Bolshevik Leninist Party, Ceylon Unit, 1948.
- - - . Independence: Real or Fake? Colombo: Lanka Sama Samaja

Party, 1948.
- - - . The Present Political Situation in India. Being the Inaugural
Address delivered on 5-3-48 at the All Bengal Students' Congress
Annual Conference at Uluberia. Colombo, n.d. [1948].
- - - . "Quelle independance pour Ceylan?" Quatrieme
Internationale, January-February, 1948, pp. 53-54.
de Souza, Doric. China 1925-1950: Revolution, Counter-Revolution,
Imperialist and Civil War. Part One: 1925-False PerspectivesCommunist Subordination to the Kuo Min Tang. Colombo:
Bolshevik Samasamaja Publications, 1950.
"The Struggles of the Colonial Peoples and the World Revolution"
[Resolution Adopted by the Second World Congress of the Fourth
International, April 1948], reprinted in Fourth International, July
1948, pp. 144-58.
Rev. Horathepala Palitha Thera (ed.), Philip Gunawardene Lipi
Saranaya [A Collection of the Life and Times of Phi lip
Gunawardena]. Colombo, 2003.
Tilak, K. [Leslie Goonewardene]. From the First to the Fourth
International. Calcutta: Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Bengal
Committee, 1944.
- - - . "Indian Correspondence," Fourth International, October
1946, pp. 310-12.
- - - . The Rise and Fall of the Comintern (from the First to the
Fourth International). Introduction by Ajit Roy. Bombay: Spark
Syndicate, 1947.
- - - . "The Wavell Plan-A New Form of Old Slavery," reprinted in
Fourth International, September 1945, pp. 279-81.
347
"To the Toilers of Ceylon (A Summary of the Election Manifesto of

Our Ceylon Unit), " New Spark, August 30, 1947, p. 7.
Trotsky, Leon. "A Letter on India," Writings of Lean Trotsky (193940). New York: Merit, 1969, p. 14.
- - - . "Open Letter to the Workers of India," New International,
September 1939, pp. 263-66.
"Trotskyism in India," Fourth International, October 1944, p. 299; also
"Le mouvement Trotskyste aux Indes," Quatrieme Internationale,
July-August, 1945, pp. 25-27.
Vardhan, H. A. [Hector Abhayavardhana]. The August Struggle and its
Significance. Bombay, Bolshevik Leninist Party, 1947.
"La victoire electorale des Trotskystes et le projet d'independance de
Ceylan (Declaration du Secretariat International de la IVe
Internationale)," Quatrieme Internationale, January-February,
1948, pp. 54-55.
"Views, Demands, and Program of the Revolutionary Workers Party
(Trotskyist)" (translated from Hindi), Jivan, 6 February 1948.
Vote for August! Vote for Struggle! Calcutta: K. Banerjee. [December,

1945].
Interviews
Abhayavardhana, Hector. Colombo, 17-18 December 1997.

Amamath, S. Bombay, 14 June 1974.
Anthony Pillai, S.C.c. Bombay, 14 December 1973.
Anthony Pillai, Suresh and Yasomi. Boralugoda (Sri Lanka), 20
December 1997.
Arya, Raj Narayan. Kanpur, 21 April 1974.
Banda, Mike [Van der Poorten]. London, 20 November 2003.
Banerji, Sailen. Calcutta, 1,7, and 9 February, 1974; and 26 April 1974.
Belani, Jagu. Bombay, December 1973.
348
Bhattacharyya, Keshav. London, 16 July 1974 and 24 July 1977.

Boda, Tulsi. Bombay, 17 and 27 December 1973.
Bose, Dulal. Calcutta, 2 February 1974.
Chatterji, Sudarshan. Calcutta, 3, 5, and 8 February 1974.
Das, Sitanshu. New Delhi, 25 March 1974.
Desai, Magan. Baroda, 21 December 1973.
Drieberg, Trevor. New Delhi, 31 March 1974.
Femando, Meryl. Mt. Lavinia (Sri Lanka), several sessions in May 1974.
Goonewardene, Leslie. Colombo, June 1979.
Gunawardena, Dinesh. Colombo, 20 December 1997.
Gunawardena, Gitanjana. Colombo, 20 December 1997.
Gunawardena, Lakmali. Newark (Delaware), 20 August 1997 and
Colombo, 18 December 1997.
Gunawardena, Prasanna. Colombo, 20 December 1997.
Jayaratpe, Osmund. Colombo, 18 December 1997.
Karalasingham, v. Colombo, 22 May 1974.
Kolpe, Sitaram. Bombay, 15 December 1973 and 19 June 1974.
Mishra, Hiranand. Calcutta, 7 February 1974.
Mukherji, Basanta Dev. Calcutta, 9 February 1974.
Parija, Murlidhar. Bombay, 12 and 23 December 1973.
Perera, Selina. Calcutta, 29 January 1974 and 10 February 1974.
Plastrik, Stanley. New York City, 7 December 1974.
Rao, S.R. Bombay, 13 June 1974.
Rao, T.R. Bombay, 13 June 1974.
Roy, Ajit Kumar Mukerji and Annie. Calcutta, 10 February 1974.
Roy, Karuna Kant. Calcutta, 30 January 1974.
Roy, Pumangshu K. Calcutta, 2 February 1974.
Samarakkody, Edmund. Mt. Lavinia (Sri Lanka), May 1974 and June
1979.
The Trotskyist,Movement in India and Ceylon
Sen, Indra. Calcutta, 16 and 17 January, 1 and 5 February, 3, 26 and 27

April, 1974.
Shukla, Chandravadan. Bombay, 27 December, 1973 and 7, 12, and 13
June 1974.
Singh, Mahendra. Varanasi, 2 January 1974.
Siriwardena, Regi. Colombo, 17 and 20 December 1997.
Udyawar, S.P. Bombay, 24 December 1973.
SECONDARY SOURCES
Abhayavardhana, Hector. "Categories of Left Thinking in Ceylon,"

reprinted in Rajan Philips (ed.), Sri Lanka: Global Challenges and
National Crises: Proceedings of the Hector Abhayavardhana
Felicitation Symposium. Colombo: Ecumenical Institute for Study
and Dialogue and Social Scientists' Association, 2001, pp. 353-73.
- - - . "Daisy Ferdinandusz Rajakarunanayake - A Devoted Mother
and Silent Lady of the Left," The Island, 30 July 2000.
- - - . Hector Abhayavardhana: Selected Writings. Colombo: Social

Scientists' Association, 2001.
- - - . "How the LSSP Turned Trotskyist," Lanka Guardian, 15 July
1982, pp. 1,'23.
- - - . "Marxism and Some Features of the Lanka Sama Samaja
Party," reprinted in Rajan Philips (ed.), Sri Lanka: Global
Challenges and National Crises: Proceedings of the Hector
AbhayavardhanaFelicitation Symposium, pp. 375-89.
- - - . "NM-the worker-rural poor alliance," Lanka Guardian,
October 1, 1979.
- - - . "Selina Perera-The Forgotten Socialist Militant," Pravada,
v.4,no. 10-11, 1997,pp. 19-20.
- - - . "The Significance of Disfranchisement of Plantation
Workers," Lanka Guardian, 15 January 1986, pp. 7-8.
350
The 1i"Otskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
- - - . "The War: Its Importance in Colvin's Development as a

Marxist Leader," Lanka Guardian, 15 June 1982, pp. 12-14.
Alexander, Robert J. "Trotskyism in Ceylon/Sri Lanka: The Rise of the
Lanka Sama Samaja Party" and "Split and Decline of Ceylon/Sri
Lankan Trotskyism," in International Trotskyism 1929-1985: A
Documented Analysis of the Movement. Durham: Duke University
Press, 1991, pp. 159-194.
- - - . "Trotskyism in India," in International Trotskyism 1929-1985:
A Documented Analysis of the Movement. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1991, pp. 516-533.
Amarasinghe, Y. Ranjith. Revolutionary Idealism and Parliamentary
Politics: A Study of Trotskyism in Sri Lanka. Colombo: Social
Scientists' Association: 1998.
Anandalingam, G. and Abraham, Mary. "Left-Wing Politics and Ethnic
Conflict in Sri Lanka, " South Asia Bulletin, vol. 6, no. 2 (Fall
1986).
Appanraj, K. Anja Nenjan: Thoyizh Sangha Medai s.c.c. Antoni Pillai
Vazhkai Varalaru [The Fearless One: Biography of the Intellectual
Labour Leader, S.C.C. Anthony Pillai]. Chennai : H.M.S. Chennai
Nagar Council, 1995.
Arjuna. Pilip Gunavardhana caritaya [The Life of Philip
Gunawardena]. Moratuwa: Sarat Gunasena [1969].
Basu, Jyoti (ed.). Documents of the Communist Movement in India. 26
vols. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1997-99.
Baghavan, R. S. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Marxism.
Introduction by C.L.R. James. London: Socialist Platform, 1987.
Balasubramanian, V. October Puratzhi: Trotsky [October Revolution:
Trotsky]. Madurai: Samadharma Illakiya Pannai, 1991.
Basu, Nirban. The Political Parties and the Labor Politics, 1937-47.
Calcutta: Minerva Associates, 1992.
351
Birchman, Robert. "Revolutionary Developments in India," Fourth

International, May 1946, pp. 158-59.
Bomstein, Sam and Richardson, AI. Against the Stream: A History of
the Trotskyist Movement in Britain, 1924-1938. London: Socialist
Platform, 1986.
- - - . Two Steps Back: Communists and the Wider Labour

Movement, 1939-1945: A Study in the Relations Between
Vanguard and Class. London: Socialist Platform [1982].
- - - . War and the International. London: Socialist Platform, 1986.
Broue, Pierre. "Notes sur \'Histoire des oppositions et du mouvement
trotskyste en Inde dans la premiere motie du XXe siecle," Cahiers
Leon Trotsky, March 1985, pp. 11-44.
- - - . Trotsky (Paris: Etudes et documentation intemationa\es, 1988).

Casciola, Paolo. Trotsky and the Struggles of the Colonial Peoples.
Foligno: Centro Studi Pietro Tresso, 1990.
"Comrade Mallikarjun Rao," Marxist Outlook, vo!. 1, no. 3 (April
1966), pp. 22-25.
Chowdhuri, Satyabrata Rai. Leftist Movements in India, 1917-47.
Calcutta: Minerva Associates, 1977. Section on "The Bolshevik
Leninist Party," pp. 231-232.
De Silva, E. P. NM: A Short Biography. Colombo: Times of Ceylon,
1975.
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921 (New York,
1954); The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 1921-1929 (London,
1959); and The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929-1940 (London,
1963).
Ervin, Charles Wesley. Phi/ip Gunawardena: The Making of a
Revolutionary. With introduction by Hector Abhayavardhana.
Colombo: Social Scientists' Association, 2001.
352
- - - . Pilip Gunavardhana: Viplavavadiyakuge Hadagasma [Second

edition of Philip Gunawardena: The Making of a Revolutionary]
Colombo: Godage, 2005.
- - - . "Trotskyism in India: Origins through World War 11 (193545)," Revolutionary History, vol. 1, no. 4 (Winter 1988-89), pp.
22-34. Translated: "Le trotskysme en Inde pendant la guerre,"
Cahiers Leon Trotsky, no. 39 (September 1989), pp. 77-111.
- - - . "Trotskyism in India, 1942-48" in Blows Against the Empire:
Trotskyism in Ceylon. Edited by Al Richardson. London:
Porcupine Press, 1997.
Goonewardene, Leslie. A Short History of the Lanka Sama Samaja
Party. Colombo: Gunaratne, 1960.
- - - . The History of the
Goonewardene, 1978.
L.s.s.P.
in Perspective. Colombo: Leslie
Gunasekera, Vernon. Pilip: ohuge jivitaya ha desapalana satan

[Philip: His Life and Political Experiences]. Colombo, 1960.
Gunawardena, Lakmali. Kusuma: A Life in Left Politics. Colombo: L.
Gunawardena, 2004.
- - - . Philip: The Early Years. Boralugoda: Philip Gunawardena
Foundation, 1996.
Gunawardena, Robert. "M age desapalana atdakima" [Story of My
Political Life], serialized in Lankadipa [Colombo], September
1971-January 1972. Translated as "My Political Life," serialized
in the Daily Mirror [Colombo], November-December, 1971.
"Corn. Haradhan Chatterjee" [obituary], Janata, 1 April 1951.
Jayawardena, Visakha Kumari. "The Background to the Formation of
the Lanka Sama Samaja Party," Young Socialist [Colombo], no. 1
[new series] (March 1980), pp. 11-26.
- - - . "The Origins of the Left Movement in Sri Lanka," Modern
Ceylon Studies, vol. 2 (1971), pp. 195-221; "Origins of the Left
Movement in Sri Lanka," Social Scientist, vol. 2, no. 6/7 (January/
353
February 1974), pp. 3-28; reprinted The Origins of the Left

Movement in Sri Lanka. [Colombo] Sanjiva Books.
- - - . The Rise of the Labor Movement in Ceylon. Durham: Duke

University Press, 1972.
- - - . "Vivienne Goonewardene-'La Pasionaria' of Sri Lanka,"
Pravada,v.4,no. 10-11, 1997,pp. 16-18.
Karalasingham, V. Politics of Coalition. Colombo: International
Publishers, 1964.
Lerski, George J. Origins of Trotskyism in Ceylon. Stanford: Hoover
Institution, 1968.
- - - . "Trotskyism in Sri Lanka," Studies in Comparative
Communism, vol. 10, nos. 1-2 (1977), pp. 109-32.
- - - . "The Twilight of Ceylonese Trotskyism, Pacific Affairs, vol.
43, no. 3 (Fall 1970), pp. 384-93.
Liyanage, Pulsara: Vivi: A Biography of Vivienne Goonewardena. With
an introduction by Hector Abhayavardhana. Colombo: Women's
Education and Research Centre, [1998?].
- - - . "Vivie: The Beginnings of a Biography," Lanka Guardian,
September 15, 1996, pp. 15-17.
- - - . "Leslie and Vivie," Lanka Guardian, October 1, 1996, pp. 17-18.
Madapata, Chris. "Trotskyism in Revolutionary Movements: Sri Lanka
in an Asian Context," South Asia Bulletin, vol. 7, nos. 1-2 (1987),
pp. 23-38.
Mahindapala, H.L.D. "The Lankan Left," series in Lanka Guardian,
May 15,1997, pp. 5-6ff; June 1, 1997, pp. 17-21ff; July 1,1997,
pp. 15-20; and October 1, 1997, pp. 2-3.
Masani, Minoo. Bliss Was it in That Dawn. New Delhi: ArnoldHeinemann, 1977.
Misra, Bankey Bihari. The Indian political parties: an historical
analysis ofpolitical behavior up to 1947. Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1976.
354
"Le mouvement revolutionnaire en Inde et la IV e Internationale, 19301944," Les Cahiers du CERMTRI, no. 98 (December 2000) .
...
Muthiah, Wesley and Wanasinghe, Sydney, eds. The Bracegirdle

Affair: An Episode in the History ofthe Lanka Sama Samaja Party.
Colombo: Young Socialist Publication, 1998.
- - - . Britain,. World War 2 & the Sama Samasamajists. Colombo:

Young Socialist Publication, 1996.
Palitha Thera, Horathepala. Santhi Gurunnanse [Biography of
Warnakulasuriya Santiago Fernando]. Colombo: S. Godage, 2004.
Peiris, GL. Some Themes in the Life and Work ofDr. Colvin R. de Silva.
Colombo: Star Press, 1991.
Perera, N.M., "Philip Gunawardena: The Father of Socialism in
Ceylon," 1972, reprinted in Daily News [Colombo], January 13,
1999.
Perera, Reggie. "Journey into Politics," memoirs serialized in the
Ceylon Observer (Sunday Edition), August-September, 1962.
Perera, T. "The Bracegirdle Saga: 60 Years After," What Next, no. 5
(1997), pp. 15-17.
Poulisse, Jan. "Trotskij over Groot Britannie en India," Kleio, vol. 18
(1977) pp. 314-18.
Ramaswamy, B.M.K. Tiratski vaazhkkai varalaaru: oru thiranaayvu
[Trotsky Biography: An In-Depth Analysis]. 2 vols. Madurai:
Samadharma Illakiya Pannai, 1989-90.
Richardson, Al (ed.) Blows Against the Empire: Trotskyism in Ceylon.
London: Porcupine Press, 1997.
Samarakkody, Edmund. "The Struggle for Trotskyism in Ceylon,"
Spartacist, no. 22, Winter 1973-74.
Samaranayake, Ajith. "The Golden Afternoon of the LSSP," Sunday
Observer [Colombo], November 23, 1997.
355
- - - . "The Sama Samajists in India," Sunday Observer [Colombo],

November 30, 1997.
Samaraweera, Vijaya. "Sri Lankan Marxists in electoral politics, 19471977." Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, vol.
18, no. 3 (Nov. 1980), p. 308-24; revised in K.M. de Silva (ed.).
Universal Franchise: 1931-81, The Sri Lankan Experience.
Colombo: Department of Government Printing, 1981.
Shourie, Arun. The Only Fatherland: Communists, "Quit India" and
the Soviet Union. New Delhi: ASA Publications, 1991.
Sinha, L. P. The Left-Wing in India, 1919-47. Muzaffarpur: New
Publishers, 1965. Section on "The Bolshevik-Leninist Party of
India," pp. 528-30.
Siriwardena, Regi. "Remembrance of Politics Past-The LSSP
Documents of the 'Thirties and Early 'Fourties," serialized in the
Lanka Guardian, May 1, 1996, pp. 7-9; and June 1, 1996, pp.6-7.
- - - . Working Underground. The LSSP in Wartime: A Memoir of

Happenings and Personalities. Colombo: International Centre for
Ethnic Studies, 1999.
"Trotskyism in Turkmenistan," Central Asian Review, 9 (1961), pp.
144-48.
"Vernon 'Gunasekera (1908-1996)," Cahiers Leon Trotsky, 60
(November 1979), p. 124.
"Vivienne Goonewardene (1916-1996)," Cahiers Leon Trotsky, 60
(November 1979), pp. 123-24.
Weerawardana, D. D. Ceylon General Election-1956. Colombo: M.
D. Gunasena, 1960. Section on "The Left Movement," pp. 59-75.
Wijesekera, Chitra. Women in Our Legislature: A Sri Lankan Study
(From 1931 to 1977). Ratmalana: Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha, 1995.
Wriggins, W. Howard. Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1960.
356
Index
Abhayavardhana, Hector, 94, 112n,
118,128, BIn, 132, 134n, 135,
139n, 159n, 161n, 166n, 171n,
189,192n,221-3,225,233,235,
238n,241,248,250
Adhikari, Dr. Gangadhar, 143-4
Aggarwala, Hans Raj, 57n, 250
Ali, Aruna Asaf, 181
All-India Trade Union Congress,
57n, 169,217,251,302-4
Amamath, S., 211, 248, 250-1
Ambedkar, Dr. Bhimrao Ramji, 86n
Angadi, Ayana Veerayaswami, 152,
251
Anthony Pillai, Caroline, 192n,
211-2,251
Anthony Pillai, S.C.c., 70, 102-3,
138, 139, 140, 142, 145, 192n,
208-17, 222n, 223, 225, 231n,
235-6,238,241,246,248,251-2
Appanraj, K., 95, 102, 112, 137,
206,252
Artisans in India, 1, 3, 9-11,
282-3,288
Arya, Raj Narayan, Ill, 222n,
231n, 236, 241, 244-5, 249,253
Attlee, Clement, 173, 187,218
Attygalle, Richard, 162, 253
Azad Dastas, 120
Bagchi, Amal, 202-3, 253
Baghavan, R.S., 162,196,253
Balaram, G., 209, 212
Balasingham, V., 95, 254

Balasubramaniam, V., 136, 254
Banerjea, Dhiren, 135, 254
Banerji, Kamala, 176
Banerji, Sailen, 203
Bannerjea, Surendranath, 18, 21
Bannerji, Kamalesh, 72n, 91-2, 97,
98-100,102-4, 119, 176, 190,
196-7, 201, 204n, 238, 245-7,
254-5
Barbusse, Henri, 49n
Bebe1, August, 25
Belani, Jagu, 249, 255
Bengal Labour Party, 170n, 305
Bemstein, Eduard, 25
Boda, Tulsi, 169n, 199-200, 231n,
246,248,255
Bolshevik Leninist Party ofIndia
and Ceylon (BLPI): preconferences, 96-7, 99; program,
99, 103-4, 106-9,280-336; on
WWII, 100-2, 110-11, 116, 141,
325-32; defense of USSR, 101,
121-22, 142,243-4,328-32;
formation meeting, 103-4,280;
structure, 104-5; affiliation to
Fourth International, 105,240;
attitude to Indian National
Congress, 108-9, 140,293-7,
312-3; in Bombay, 110-11, 1179,131-2,198-200; in United
Provinces and Bihar, 111, 11920, 134-5; in Bengal, 111, 119,
132-4,192, 198,201-5,228; in
Madras, 111-2, 136-8, 192, 198,
357
208-17,228; in Madura, 120,

135-6,206-7; in Quit India
movement, 114, 116-22, 126;
optimism of, 112, 129-30, 191,
192; First Party Conference
(1944), 139-46,280; on the
Congress Socialists, 122, 140,
234-5; on China in WWII, 1401; on national question and
Pakistan, 142-6 175, 190-1,2234,227; factionalism within, 15472, 193-98; on independence for
India, 173; election strategy
(1945-6), 174-6; in INA
demonstrations (1945-6), 17681; in RIN Mutiny (1946), 1823; on Cabinet Mission Plan
(1946), 187; Second Party
Conference (1947), 215, 219-26,
234-5; on constituent assembly
question, 187-8,218,219-23,
227,228-9,313-4; on communal
violence, 190-1; financial
resources, 110, 134, 150, 192,
199; trade union activity, 110-11,
118-19, 133, 135-8, 149-50, 166,
182, 192,200-3,206,208-17;
peasant organizing, 207, 320-1;
on-independence ofIndia, 218,
225-7,230-1; Third Party
Conference (1948), 230-1;
Special Party Convention
(1948),238-40; on Nehru
government, 227-8; on Princely
States, 228-9, 315-16; entry
tactic, 232-40; merger with
Socialist Party, 240-9
Bolshevik Leninist Party ofthe
United Provinces and Bihar, 80,
91-2,98
358
Bolshevik Mazdoor Party of India,

81-2, 104, 165, 167-9, 199-200,
249
Borodin, Mikhail, 41
Bose, Dulal, 91, 176n, 201, 202-3,
231n,255-6
Bose, Sarat Chandra, 177-8
Bose, Subhas Chandra (Netaji), 53,
108,176-7,298
Bukharin, Nikolai, 42-3, 46, 51,
52n,69
Bunby, Fred, 142, 151, 234,
236;256
Cama, Rustom Bhikaji (Madame

Cama),25
Capitalist class in India, 15-17, 21,
107,285-7,293,300,306-7
Caste, 35, 86-7, 108; see also
Harijans
Ceylon Federation of Labour, 194
Ceylon National Congress, 60
Chatterji, Haradhan, 176, 177, 179,
202-3,256
Chatterji, Sudarshan, 204n
Chattopadhyaya, Gautam, 91 n, 185
Chattopadhyaya, Virendranath,
49n,69
Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), 42,
43,49n, 141
Chittagong Armoury Raid (1930),
295
Civil Disobedience Movement
(1930-32),78,107,294,306-7
Clive, Robert, Governor of Bengal,
2-3
Communalism: in India, 35,108,

188-91,209,219,223; in
Ceylon, 189, 198
Communist International
(Comintern): formation, 27; on
colonial question, 27, 29, 50;
support for Khilafat movement,
27; Second Congress (1920), 2931,37; Third Congress (1921),
38; Fourth Congress (1922), 38,
39-40; on the united-front tactic,
38-9; on formation of "peoples
parties," 39-40; policy in China
(1925-7),39,41-4,333; Fifth
Congress (1924), 40,50; Sixth
Congress (1928), 46, 51; on twostage revolution theory, 42, 44-6,
107; ultra-left period (1929-33),
51,53,63,304,333-4; policy for
Indian National Congress, 52,
76, 79, 304; Popular Front line
(1935-9),63-7, 76, 79, 334-5;
Seventh Congress (1935), 65,
79n; intervention in Spanish
Civil War (1936-9),68,334-5;
and Stalin-Hitler Pact (1939),71,
335; Peoples' War line (1942-5),
100,304,335; dissolved (1943),
130; see also Communist Parties.
Communist Parties: America, 49;
Ceylon, 75, 195; China, 39, 414,45-6,247,333; France, 64,
66, 335; Germany, 38, 40, 53,
63, 334; Great Britain, 50-2, 56,
57,66n, 67n, 76,89, 143n, 152;
Mexico, 49; South Africa, 82;
Spain, 68
Communist Party ofIndia, 53, 57n,
62,66-7,76,79,80-1,108,111,
113-4, 116-7, 118n, 120-2, 127,
131-2,133,138,143-5,170n,
174, 177-81, 183, 185-6,202,
208,210,213,220,224,227,
237,240,247,298,303,304
Congress Socialist Party (CSP), 601,73,76-8,80-1,84,88, 108, 115,
119-20,171-2,173-4,181,184,
206,226,232,234,297-8,305
Constituent Assembly, 173, 187,
218-23,232,314
Cooray, Lionel, 111, 112, 127-8,
161n,256
Cornwallis, Charles, GovernorGeneral ofIndia, 4, 6, 7
Cripps, Stafford, 164, 173
Curzon, George Nathaniel, Viceroy
ofIndia,20
Dalhousie (James Ramsey, First

Marquess of Dalhousie),
Governor-General of India, 12
Dange, S.A., 208n
Das, Sitanshu, 119, 132-3, 139n,
176,233,235n,257
De Silva, Colvin R., 57, 58,61,69,
71,92,97, 109 110, 128, 133,
139n, 140, 142, 145, 158, 161,
174,191, 192n, 195n, 197,214,
222n,225,230-1,275-6
De Silva, Susan, 59, 160,276
De Souza, Doric, 70, 71n, 96-7,
99-100, 112, 121n, BIn, 132,
139n, 140, 155-61, 163n, 163-4,
170-2, 193, 195, 221n, 225-6,
278
De Souza, Violet, 131 n
Dev, Acharya Narendra, 79
De Zylva, Terrence, 70, 279
359
The r,'otskyist Movement in India and Ceylon
Dharmapala, Anagarika, 162n

Dimitrov, Georgi, 68, 72n
Drieberg, Trevor, 131n, 257
Durai Raj, P.V., 257
Dutt, Clemens, 50, 53, 56
Dutt, Rajani Palme, 46, 50-1, 53,
106n, 143n, 281n, 289n, 292n
Dutt, Romesh Chunder, 20
Einstein, Albert, 49n

Elayaperumal, 207
Engels, Friedrich, 9n, 13n, 31;
letter to Kautsky on colonialism
(1882), 23, 26
Fernando, Amaradasa, 155-6

Feudalism in India, theory of, 4, 5,
14,19,32,46,106-7
Fourth International (FI): founding
(1938),63, 73, 85n; International
Executive Committee (IEC),
72n, 126,238; International
Secretariat (IS), 74, 238, 245-6;
Bureau, 93; on Indian
independenc~, 126,231; on entry
tactic in India (1947-8),238-40,
245; on Korean War, 243
Forward Bloc, 111, 119, 169, 170,
172,297
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand

(Mahatma), 28, 33-4, 36, 38, 52,
78,83-4,87, 108-9, 113-5, 131,
165,173,184,232,248,294-6
360
Garbutt, Douglas, 150-1, 182,258

Gee, Edward Dennis, 123-4
Ghosh, Aurobindo, 22
Glass, Frank, 82-3, 125n
Godes, M.S., 46
Goonesinha, Alexander E., 58,
59,63
Goonewardene, Cho10mondoley,
195,258
Goonewardene, Leslie, 57-8, 62,
68-9,89,93,95-7,99-100,1024, 110, 128, 132, 139n, 140 142,
150,155,160, 161n, 162, 172,
174,191, 192n, 195n,204n,222,
225,230-1,233-5,238-9,246,
258
Goonewardene, Vivienne, 102,
128, 16In, 189, 192n,259
Gopalan, A.K., 145
Gordon, Sam, 74
Green, Richard, 157, 162
Gunadasa, Mike, 157, 162
Gunasekera, A., 194
Gunasekera, Vernon, 57-8, 84n, 259
Gunawardena, Caroline, see
Caro1ine Anthony Pillai
Gunawardena, Kusuma, 127-8,
159,167,260
Gunawardena, Philip, 48-51, 5363,65-6,70,72,75,92,97,104,
109-11, 112n, 118n, 121, 127-9,
141,156-64,166-7,169-72,174,
191,193-8,229,232-4,260
Gunawardena, Robert, 58, 63, 97,
110,116,127-9,155, 157, 160,
197,261
Gupta, Balkrishna, 90, 92, 261
Harijans, 86; see also Caste

Harvani, Ansar, 78,261-2
Hindu Mahasabha, 297
Hume, Allan Octavian, 18
Independent Labour Party (ILP),

54, 78n
India League, 53, 70, 84n, 152
Indian Mutiny (1857), 12-l3, 292
Indian National Anny (INA), 176-9
Indian National Congress:
fonnation, 17-8; character of,
18-9,20,293,306; and the
landlords, 19-20,36, 79, 293,
306; and the Princes, 19; on the
working class, 34; on the
Muslims, 108n; Moderate group
within, 19,21-2; Extremist group
within, 19, 22; and peasantry, 20,
79, 107; in Swadeshi movement
(1906-8),21-2,29,294; and
Morley-Minto refonns (1909),
22, 294; and MontaguChelmsford refonn (1919), 294;
Bardoli resolution (1922), 36,
294; Gandhi-Irwin settlement
(1931),295; Simla conferences
(1945-6), 173, 187; elections
(1945), 174; on INA
demonstrations (1945-6), 17781; on RIN Mutiny (1946),1846; on Cabinet Mission, 219; on
Constituent Assembly, 219; in
independent India, 247; see also
Civil Disobedience movement,
Non-Cooperation movement
International Left Opposition, see
Left Opposition
Jadhav, Lakshman, 182,200,237

Jallianwala Bagh massacre
(1919),28
James, C.L.R., 70, 89-90, 92
Jha, Jagadish, 201, 262
Jinnah, MuhammadAli (Quaid-iAzam), 143, 187, 188-90
Joshi, P.C., 77"Il3-4, 120,
Kabir, Humayun, 91, l33

Kalyanasundara Mudaliar, Thiru V.
(Thiru Vi. Ka.), l37n, 208, 211,
214,216
Kamenev, Lev, 45, 69
Kanpur Mazdoor Sabha, 80
Karalasingham, V., 57n, 132, 139n,
141-2, 162, 192n,222n,231~
236,238n,239,244-5,262
Karkal, Ramesh, 111, 128n, 183,
200n,246,263
Karuppa Pillai, Sholavandan, 95,
112
Kautsky, Karl, 23-6
Kemal, Mustafa, (Ataturk), 38
Keuneman, Pieter, 70
Khan, Zahrul Hasan, 201, 203,
236,263
Khilafat movement (1920-22),278,34,35,108n
Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party, 248
Kodial, Raghuvir, Ill, 128n, 263
Koley, Satyen, 176, 263
Kolpe, Sitaram, 88, 89n, 264
Koppar, P.G., 128n
Korean War, 243-4
Kotelawala, lC.T. (Jack), 112,
195n, 264
361
Kotelawala, John, 162n

Kripalani, Acharya, 248
Krishnamurthy, T.G., 95, 112, 120,
207,210
Kuomintang (Nationalist Party),
39,41-2,45,296,333
Landlords in India, 3, 6-7, 13-4,

19-20,36, 79, 107,282,288-91,
293,299
Landy, Avrom, 49
Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP):
formation, 48, 61; the "T Group"
within, 56, 57; links with
Congress Socialist Party, 61; on
Spanish Civil War, 68-70; on
Moscow Trials, 69; pro-Moscow
faction within, 70; at odds with
Comintern, 66-8, 71; opposition
to WWII, 66, 72, 92; contacts
with Fourth International, 73-4;
expels pro-Moscow faction, 75;
transformation into a Trotskyist
party, 76, 100, 155-8; contacts
with Indian Trotskyists, 92, 95100; plantation strikes,
leadership of, 92; repression
during WWII, 92-4, 112; thesis
of single Indo-Ceylonese
revolution, 94, 100; jailbreak of
leaders, 104; factionalism within,
154-63,169-72,193-8; split
(1945-50), 197-8; on Tamil
rights, 198; on independence
(1948),229-30
League Against Imperialism, 49,
50n, 54,56,69,89
362
Lee, Raff, 83
Left Opposition, 43-5, 51, 52n, 55,
58, 82-3, 84n, 85, 333; see also
Trotskyist parties
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich: opposition
to WWI (1914-17), 26; on
nationalists in Asia, 27, 30-1, 37;
on need for a revolutionary
policy for Asia, 28; theses on
national and colonial question
(1920), 29, 31; on "revolutionary
democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and peasantry," 37n,
309; on united-front tactics
(1920),38,39; his Last
Testament (1922),88; calls for
Stalin's removal (1923),88,
143n; theory of imperialism, 226
Liberal Federation ofIndia, 294,
297
Lohia, Ram Manohar, 247-8
Lotvala, R.B., 84
Madras Labour Union (MLU),

137n, 208-17
Managing agency system, 15, 17,
287
Mandekar, Anant, 199-200, 237n,
264-5
Manickam, see Bodi M. Muthiah
Manuilsky, Dimitri, 66, 68
Maring (Hendricus Sneevliet), 39
Marx, Karl: on British land
settlements in India, 8-9; on
character ofpre-colonial India,
9, 46; postulates an Asiatic Mode
. of Production, 9n, 32n; rejects
idea of "Indian feudalism," 9,
32,42,45,46, 106; on British

plunder of colonies, 9-10; on
impact of British manufactures
11-12; on the Indian Mutiny, 13;
on nationalism, 24; supports
India's freedom, 12,23;
questions prognosis for
capitalism, 23n; his writings on
Asia slip into obscurity, 29, 281n;
and are rediscovered (1925), 29,
45, 106n; on "combined
development" in India, 33
Marxian Propaganda League, 54
Masani, Minoo, 73n, 78, 84, 205
Mazdoor Trotskyist Party of India,
105,249
Mazumdar, Niharendu Datta, 170
Mehta, Ratilal, 84
Mendis, Allan, 111, 138, 159n, 265
Menon, V.K. Krishna, 70, 84n
Mishra, Hiranand, 98, 133,201,
221n, 238n, 240,245,249,265
Mitra, Chitta, 265
Moplah revolt (1921),35
More, Prabhakar, 182, 200, 235n,
248,266
Moscow Trials (1936-8), 46n, 6970; see also Stalin: execution of
political opponents
Mountbatten, Louis (Lord),
Admiral Viscount, Viceroy of
India, 192,214,216,218-9,227
Mukherji, Basanta Dev, 266
Munroe, Thomas, Governor of
Madras, 7-8
Miinzenberg, Willi, 49n
Muslim League, 108, 139, 142-6,
173-4,178,181,184-91,192,
220,297
Muthiah, Bodi M., 112, 138, 139n,

149,211,214,236,266
Namboodripad, E.M.S., 114n, 144

Narayan, Jaya Prakash, 49, 60, 69,
120,232,240,242,244,247-8
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 49n, 53, 69,
113,173, 178, 188,215,219,
220,226,232,247,298
Nin, Andres, 68
Non-Cooperation movement
(1920-22), 33, 34-6,48, 52n,
107, 108n,294-5
Pablo, Michel, 238, 245-6

Pakistan question, 108, 142-5,
174-5,187,190,223-4
Palani Velayutham, G., 209, 266
Pardiwala, H.R., 119
Parija, Murlidhar, 88, 89, 267
Parulekar, N.B., 118n
Patel, Shanta, 169n 199-200
Patel, Vallabhbhai (Sardar), 79n, 186
Peasantry in India, 1,3-8, 20n, 35,
79, 107, 117,282,288-91,
298-9,300-1,308,320-1
Peiris, Henry, 231n, 267
Perera, G.P. ("Elephant Perera"),
156n
Perera, George ("Chumbi"), 156n
Perera, Lorenz, 158n, 162,267 .
Perera, Milton, 157, 162
Perera, N.M., 57-8, 59, 62, 67, 92,
97, lOOn, 110, 127-9, 156, 158,
161,169-70, 193-8, 195, 197,
267-8
363
Perera, Patrick, 160n

Perera, Reggie, 268
Perera, Selina, 73-5, 128, 139n, 170,
192n, 201, 243-5, 247-8, 268-9
Perera, W.J. ("Hospital Perera"),
156n, 163, 193-5
Permanent Revolution, theory of,
37n, 44, 47, 86, 106-7,218,300,
306-10
Permanent Settlement (1793), 6,
20,289
Pillai, S.C.C. Anthony, see
Anthony Pillai
Pillai, V.O. Chidambaran, 23
Plastrik, Stanley, 73, 74n
Plekhanov, Georgii, 58, 157
Pollitt, Harry, 56
Praja Socialist Party, 248
Pratap, Sheo, 78
Princes, 14-15, 19,21, 107,228,
292-3, 308, 315
Purdy, Murray Gow, 82-9, 96,1003,105,108,122-5,204n,249,
269
Purohit, Vinayak, 118, 128n, 139n,
140,163n,235n,269-70
Quit India revolt (1942-43), 49n,

111, 113-27, 165, 174,203,217
Radek, Karl, 38-9, 43-6, 64n

Radical Democratic Party, 297-8,
327
Rai, Lala Lajpat, 22
364
Ramaswamy, B.M.K., 95, 112,

136,138,192n,206,236,270
Rao,M.Madhava,210,23In,
270-1
Rao,Mahadev,210
Rao, MallikArjun, 88-9,123,125,
249n, 271
Rao, T.R., 243, 271
Reilly, FrankT. (Tommy), 151
Revolutionary Communist Party
(British Section of Fourth
International), 89n, 125n, 152,
154n,233,237
Revolutionary Communist Party of
India (RCPI), 170, 203-5
Revolutionary Socialist League
(Bengal), 92, 96
Revolutionary Socialist Party of
India, 111, 119, 177
Revolutionary Workers League of
India, 89
Riazanov, David, 29,45-6, 281n
Ridley, Frank, 54-5
Rivera, Diego, 49n
Roy, Ajit, 70, 89-91,130, 152,
198,206,228,231n,241,245,
271-2
Roy, Karuna Kant, 78, 98, 131n,
139n, 272
Roy, Manabendra Nath, 29-33,367,39-43,46,50-1, 52n, 118,
194,297-8,327
Roy, Purnangshu K., 98, 133, 146,
148,150,176,201,221n,225,
231n,240,245,249,272
Roy, Suprova, 176
Ryotwari Settlement (1813),8,
289-90
Sahajanand, Swami (Sahajanand

Saraswati), 79
Saklatvala, Shapurji, 50-I, 53
Samarakkody, Edmund, 92, 97n,
162,195,273
Sampurnanand,248
Sanyal, Dhiresh, 176
Sastry, V.S.S., 152, 198-9, 222n,
223,233,235n, 238n, 245, 273
Satchithanandam, V., 70, 272-3
Scott, L., 148-50
Second International (Social
Democrats), 23-5, 26, 28, 53,
243,332
Selvaraj, G., 138,210, 231n, 273-4
Sen, Indra, 91, 98-9,104,119,
139n, 140, 142, 145, 182, 198,
222n, 225, 230-1, 237-8, 241-2,
. 246, 248, 274
Senanayake, Daisy, 274
Senanayake, Reggie, 89, 97,128,
274
Shachtman, Max, 73n, 141,205,
243-4
Shastri, Hariharnath, 80
Shastri, Onkarnath, 77-81, 91-2,
98-9, 103-4, 134-5,275
Shukla, Chandravadan, 81-2, 89,
96, 101, 103-5, 110, 162, 165-9,
199-200,249,275
Silva, K.P., 231n
Silva, P.H. WilIiam, 70, 89, 161,
195n, 276-7
Silva, Sam, 156n
Sinclair, Upton, 49
Singh, Ajit (Sardar), 22
Singh, Ambika, 123,249
Singh,Mahendra, 124
Singh, Vishwanath, 134n

Siqueiros, DavidAlfaro, 49
Sircar, Mukundlal, 169
Siriwardena, Regi, lOOn, 112n,
154n, 159n, 160, 162,277
Socialist Party ofIndia, 232, 234,
236-7,240-4,247-8; see also
Congress Socililist Party
Socialist Workers Party (USA), 734, 83n, 87, 121n, 125n, 141,
146n, 147-8, 183n,215,218n,
222n, 234, 244n
Solomon, M.T., 97, 112, 128, 138
Soysa, Bernard, 96, 97, 98-100,
102-4,128,162,277
Stalin, Joseph: Lenin calls for his
removal (1923),88; votes to
suppress Lenin's Last Testament
(1924), 88n; role in fight over
China policy (1925-8), 42-3, 456, 51; "Social Fascism" theory
(1929-34),51-3; on two-class
parties in the East, 52n; Popular
Front line (1934-39), 65; and
Spanish Civil War (1936-9),678; Stalin-Hitler Pact (1939),64,
71-2; execution of political
opponents,46,64n,68,69,72,
246n
Stanley, Sherman, see Stanley
Plastrik
Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan), 27,
38-9,41
Suriya Mal movement, 59-60
Tagore, Saumyendra Nath, 91n,

170,203-5
Tata Iron and Steel Company, 21
365
Third International, see

Communist International
Tilak, Bal Gangadhar
(Lokamanya), 19,23, 137n
Tilakar, A.H., 89n
Transitional Program of the
Fourth International (1938),856, 100, 106, 220
Trivedi, Rajendra, 248
Trotsky, Leon: opposition to WWI
(1914-7),26; as Soviet
Commissar for Foreign Affairs
(1917), 26n; authors founding
Manifesto of Comintern (1919),
27; suggests Red Army offensive
towards British India (1919),
28n; praised by Lenin (1922),
88n; formulates theory of
Permanent Revolution for Russia
(1905), 37n, 44, 204n; calls for
insurrection in Germany (1923),
40n; on "socialism in one
country" (1925), 226; on twostage revolution theory, 42; calls
for revolutionary policy in China
(1925-7), 42-4; forms Left
Opposition (1923), 44, 46-7;
generalizes theory of Permanent
Revolution (1927), 45, 47;
expelled from Bolshevik party,
45; exiled to Alma Ata, 46;
critique of Comintern Program
(1928), 52n; on Stalinist theory
of "Social Fascism," 52-3; on
forming two-class parties in the
East, 52; on M.N Roy, 52n; on
rise of Nazis, 63, 65; calls for
new International, 63; against the
Popular Front, 65, 218n; on the
entry tactic (1934-8),171,233;
366
on Indian independence 27 94
218; on constituent asse:nbl~ ,
slogan, 220-1; on WWII, 130;
History of the Russian
Revolution (1930), 78, 90; The
Revolution Betrayed (1938), 71;
"Open Letter to the Workers of
India" (1939), 74n, 82, 94;
"Letter to an Indian Comrade"
(1939), 74-5, 170
Trotskyist parties: China, 82n, 83,
141; France, 58, 171n,246;
Germany, 53n; Great Britain 70
73,89, 91n, 92, 109; Spain, 58, '
68; South Africa, 88n; USA, 734,82-3,87, 88n, 171n; see also
Revolutionary Communist Party
(British Section) and Socialist
Workers Party (USA)
Troyanovsky, K.M., 30, 31n
Udyawar, S.P., 118, 278

Untouchables, see Harijans
Vaidialingam, A., 70
Van Kol, Henri, 24-5
Vanniasingham, R.H., 198, 199n
Vasconcelos, Jose, 49
Venkataram, R., 120
Wavell, Archibald Percival,

ViceroyofIndia, 173, 187, 192,
218
Wickremasinghe, Esmond, 112,
155, 163,278
Wickremasinghe, Dr. S.A., 62, 70,

75n, 157n
WiIliam, D.G ("Galle Face
WiIliam"), 156n
Workers' and Peasants' Parties, 52,
300,304
Workers Group (Fourth
Internationalist), 88-9
Workers Party of USA, 141, 146;
see also Max Shachtman
Working class in India, 16,23,27,
80,294-5,301-5,307
World War I, 26, 72, 76, 294, 325,
332
World War 11: Trotskyist
opposition to, 66, 72, 76, 81-2,
88,92, 101-2, 110-11, 116, 141
325-32,
Youth Leagues (Ceylon), 58, 59
Zaheer, Sajjad, 144

Zinoviev, Grigori, 27, 40n, 45,51,
52n,69
Zuberi, Umar Abid, 179,201,246,
278-9
367

Charles Wesley Ervin, Tomorrow Is Ours: The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon 1935-48, Colombo: Social Scientists' Association, 2006.

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Charles Wesley Ervin, Tomorrow Is Ours: The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon 1935-48, Colombo: Social Scientists' Association, 2006.

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Tomorrow is Ours

The Trotskyist Movement in

Charles Wesley Ervin

Social Scientists' Association

Charles Wesley Ervin 2006

List of Illustrations ..................... ........ ...... ............... ........................

The Pioneers ............................................................................ 48

The Formation of an Indo-Ceylonese Party........................ 94

The Quit India Revolt ............................................................ 113

The Interlude ......................................................................... 131

Rifts in the Party .................................................................... 154

Ballots, Barricades, and Bloodshed ...................................... 173

A Race Against Time .............................................................. 192

The Breakthrough .................................................................. 208

10. Independence .......................................................................... 218

Appendix A: Biographical Notes ................................................... 250

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

That pretty much summarizes what I had been able to discover

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

However, before I could produce the next installment, new sources of

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

I have provided brief biographical sketches of the leading

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

I also acknowledge the input of prominent Trotskyists in other

Charles Wesley Ervin

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

expressed before, is that this venture represented perhaps one of the

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

remained in India. The BLPI, after much internal debate, decided to

Philip and Kusuma Gunawardena, Colombo, 1939

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

Unification conference of the LSSP and BSP, Colombo, 1950

V. Balasubramaniam P.V. Durairaj, and Siddhaman, Madurai, 1991

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

The Gunawardena brothers: Harry (left), Robert (center), and Philip

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

Regd. No. A 31140

Samaj, the first Trotskyist newspaper in India, 1937.

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

Philip and Kusuma Gunawardena,

Caroline Anthony Pillai, circa 1940.

LSSP leaders in prison at Kandy (left to right): Philip Gunawardena,

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

Ajit Roy speaking in Hyde Park, London, circa 1944-45.

RIN ratings demonstrate in Bombay, 1946.

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

Colvin de Silva (standing) speaking at meeting of the Fourth International,

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

s.c.c. Anthony Pillai, circa 1945.

Anant Mandekar, BLPI candidate

Photo: K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan:

Murray Gow Purdy, after release from

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

Philip Gunawardena (center, holding newspaper) with comrades of the LSSP,

Colvin R. de Silva, Colombo, circa 1950.

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

Bernard Soysa, circa 1950.

Robert Gunawardena, circa 1950.

Selina Perera, circa 1950.