We held, first, that the views we had in regard to the development of the Ceylonese revolution, when we were in the Chinese wing, we held that the present stage of the revolution was that of struggle for a people's democracy. At the Kallarawa discussion we rejected that view. What was relevant for Ceylon was a socialist and not a people's democratic revolution. I must explain why we rejected the concept of the people's democratic revolution.
To argue that a new democratic stage exists between the capitalist system and the socialist system is to ignore the principles of social development and mutual class relationships. World capitalism, taken in its entirety, has developed sufficiently to provide the objective conditions suitable for a socialist revolution on a global scale, and therefore socialist tasks are the order of the day even in the underdeveloped countries of the world.
At the same discussion we argued that a proletariat revolutionary party must be established. However, there cannot be a Marxist party without Marxists. What has the Old Left Movement done during the course of thirty years and more to develop Marxists? It was quite apparent that the Old Left leaders had succumbed to capitalist ideology and paid scant attention to the question of providing the working class with a basic Marxist ideas in Sinhala. Although they conducted a political class or two on certain subjects in a haphazard and irregular fashion, they did not provide the working class vanguard with systematic political education. They took no serious steps to rise and maintain political consciousness within their own ranks. As a result, when they turned the Right, there was no strong group of Marxists to fight back effectively, and most of their members followed suit.
I say all this to try and show you the context in which our five education classes came into being. Considering the negative experiences we had gained through the OLD Left, we realized that to provide the people with a knowledge of Marxism, a correct, simple, established method should be adopted so that they would be able to grasp the subject readily. I am going to conduct these five lessons here. I will only give you a brief introduction.
The first class was on the subject: 'Economic Crisis'. At it is the mode of production or the economy of a social system on which other structures rest, we realized the importance of making a fundamental analysis of the economy. We analysed the economic situation, its crisis, its origin, its causes, its development, its future and its inevitable consequences. We explained that the economic crisis in colonial and semi-colonial societies is in the process of being transformed into a political crisis, that before long it would result in a great national calamity and how the only way of escaping this calamity was to take the forward path of class struggle, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and hasten both socialist industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture.
The third class concerned the way in which Indian expansionism affected Ceylon. The idea of 'Indian expansionism' was first put award by the Chinese Communist Party. The editorial board of this party's daily newspaper, Renmin Rebao, published two articles entitled 'The Chinese - Indian Border Struggle and the Nehru Doctrine'. These gave a lengthy expose of the class needs of the Indian ruling class and its basic philosophy, and argued that the a Indian capitalists aimed at spreading their economic and political dependence over their smaller neighbours. This process was named 'Indian expansionism'. In our class we discussed how this affected our country. We explained the class needs of the powerful Borah capitalists in this country; the way in which these compare with Indian expansionism; the racist politics they engage in for the purpose of keeping the estate workers of Indian origin separate from the rest of the working class and under their own heel. We stated that the capitalist class had misled the estate workers of Indian origin and trapped them, and we determined to rescue these workers from the ideological grip of the capitalists. However, we had no cadres among comrades of the national minorities were fruitless.
The forth class was on ' The Left Movement in Ceylon'. The purpose of this class was to learn the lessons from the unhealthy experiences of the Old Left and understand the reasons for its failure. Here we criticized the policies and programme of the Old Left from the 1930s onwards. This was done primarily so that we could learn the lessons of pervious defeats.
The fifth class was the most important class. As there have been incorrect references to it, I expect to take some time to speak about it. It involved burning questions of the Ceylonese Revolution. The fifth class was originally referred to as ' The Path to Socialism in Ceylon'. Later on, after the text The Path the Latin American Revolution Should Take become well known, certain persons referred to this class as ' The Path the Ceylonese Revolution Should Take'.
After the publication of Che's Guerrilla Warfare certain of our sympathizers, as well as members of other groups, thought of seeking solutions to the prevailing economic crisis by similar methods. Two other books appeared in Sinhala at this time: Lin Piao's Long Live the Victory of People's War and Mao Tse-tung's Selected Military Writings. Some sought to apply the remedies prescribed in these volumes. The Chinese wing and their supporters thought that the Ceylonese revolution should be a repeat of the Chinese revolution, with protracted war moving from the countryside to the towns. There were others, especially those groups that broke away from the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, who advocated the example of the Russian Revolution. It was these factors which led us to prepare the fifth class.
Our purpose was to defect mechanical materialist concepts and show how incorrect and unscientific they were, and also provide our supporters with correct ideological tools. Through this class we intended to make a fundamental analysis of the experience gained by the international working - class movement in the class struggle, starting from the Paris Commune of 1871, up till the present time. We explained the difference between social reform serve the capitalist class and revolutions the proletariat. We showed how the path a revolution had taken in one country in a certain period and under different conditions and how, therefore. Socialist revolutions do not follow a single uniform path, but vary their paths depending on the time, the pace and the conditions peculiar to each occasion. In this way we demonstrated that the Chinese Revolution was difficult from the model of the Russian Revolution, and the Cuban Revolution was different from them both, and that therefore it was possible to see the emergency of a model different from previously cited experiences.
This class, like the other four, was political, theoretical and philosophical. If you want me to conduct these classes in full, I an ready to do it. It has been stated that there was something secret about these classes. Therefore if you want me to conduct the fifth class on its own in full I am ready to comply. [Justice Fernando declines the offer. His words are not clearly recorded in the Court record. ]
At the Kallarawa discussion we agreed that, after these classes were held, those who showed political interest or keenness and were ready to go ahead should be further educated, and that this should be done in educational camps where theoretical classes on Marxist economics and Marxist philosophy would be conducted. I want to make it clear that we did not expect anyone to become a Marxist by following these five basic classes. They were merely a bridge to draw people away from the influence of bourgeois ideology and closer to Marxism.
From 1968 onwards I began holding classes all over the country. They took place at the rate of two or three a day or night, depending on the times at which people could attend. During this period I began to visit the Land Development Department LDD-work-sites in various parts of the country and hold classes for the workers there. We managed to start political work in the to start political work in the Land Development Department Worker's Union. For this reason the first classes I held mostly for worker comrades, peasants and sections of youth.
During the year 1968 I held classes in eighty different work sites of the LDD. At the same time I conducted political classes for workers and clerks in the Colombo office of the LDD and in many private places. With the increasing demand for classes there was a corresponding need for more people to conduct them. Towards the end of 1968other comrades began to conduct political classes. One question needs to be explained at this stage.
A large number of persons brought before this Commission have been young. Why did these youths seek connections with the JVP? I will attempt to explain this. The new situation cared by the general crisis of capitalism; the lessons learnt via the Sino-Soviet ideological battle; the new echo of the Cuban revolution which resounded throughout the world after the death of comrade Guevara; the clamour of OLAS; the struggle of the Indo-Chinese people , in particular, of the Vietnamese, as well as other circumstance, generated a new wave which had repercussions not only in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but even in Europe and North America - the bastions of modern capitalism. This radicalism will find it necessary to protest against the exiting social system. It is no secret that by 1968 the working class movement had been misled internationally by a reformist leadership and left demoralized and dispirited before the capitalist system. It is no longer a matter of controversy that the working classes of France and Italy were thrust away from the path of class struggle into the backwaters of class collaboration. They were ideologically disarmed by the decadent, increasingly reformist leadership of the Communist Parties in the face of a capitalist onslaught. What happened in colonial and neo-colonial countries like ours was no different.
The leaders of the Old Left in Ceylon were reformists who had their heads filed with Fabian ideology. These leaders, though they called themselves Marxists, were in reality guided by the writings of Laski and Keynes, and invariably betrayed the aspirations of the workers. They tied the trade-union movement to their brand of reformist, parliamentarist politics. The final betrayal was the abandonment of the 21 demands, which destroyed the United Workers' Trade Union and the United Left Front by open collaboration with the capitalists. This historic class betrayal left the working, class discouraged and demoralized. Under the UNP government a generalized bitterness developed, and both students and young workers began to demonstrate their hostility. On several occasions during this period (1968 - 9) the Peradeniya University students clashed with the armed forces. Students from Colombo University crashed into the Parliament building and declared that it was nothing more than a den of thieves. In 1968 a number of youths who had attended our classes entered the universities, and by the end of that year we succeeded in winning over a large section of sympathizers of the Russian and Chinese wings inside universities and schools.
As a Marxist I have held, and still hold, the view that a people has the right to rebel against an arbitrary government. This is not a view held only by Marxists. Throughout history, people believing in various ideologies and religious have accepted the right of a charge, before you, of rebelling against the Queen's government, of attempting to rebel, of abetting a rebellion, and conspiring to rebel.
Honourable Chairman, some time ago o learnt that as far back as 1949 the people of Britain led by Oliver Cromwell rebelled against their monarch, Charles I, an ancestor of the present Queen of English. They wanted him off the throne and they succeeded. On that occasion the British people held by the view that to rebel against an oppressive regime was fair and just.
No doubt you are aware of how in 1778 the American rebellion under the leader ship of George Washington succeeded against the Britain empire. You are also aware of the 1789 events in is that even before the advent of Marxism people in various countries held the view that they had the right to rebel. In your capacity as judges you may have had occasion to read Vindicia Contra Tyrannos, written under the pseudonym of Stephanus Junius Brutus, in which it is stated not only that there should be insurrections against autocratic governments, but even that they should be led judges! The fact that liberal thinkers have supported the right to rebel is illustrated vividly in the French Declaration of the right of Man. A passage in it reads: ' When a government violates the right of the people, insurrection is for them the most sacred of rights, the most imperative of duties.' A glimpse into our own history will show Mahawansa, Chulawansa and other works record innumerable popular insurrections against cruel rules. We are not the first to be charged with rebellion against the Queen's government. Similar charges were brought against Keppetipola Adikarama and others in 1848. This demonstrates that the right to rebel was accepted the view that people have the right to rebel against an oppressive regime. I still hold this view.
The next question before you is whether we did rebel during the month of April1971. I will give you my answer in detail.
In this social system the privileged classes are the imperialists and their local lackeys. In this system there are a number of problems that have been growing for a long time. You know that a free education system began in this country when we were children. A large number of us from both rural and urban areas had an opportunity is almost on a par with developed countries. This is obvious when you compare Ceylon with India, Pakistan and Nepal. This has given a considerable impetus to the development of a proletarian consciousness and a proletarian political education. According to government statistics the number of children attending school was 3,500,000 and of these 270,000 leave school in search of employment every year. 50,000 have had an education up to senior level. To say that the remaining 220,000 had received a lesser education means that under this social system they have no prospects of employment above that of ordinary wage earners and labourers. Every year about 220,000 semi-educated persons enter society as serfs and labourers. This process has continued since the end of the 1950s. increasingly many university graduates also found it difficult to obtain jobs become general labourers.
According to government statistic issued in 1969 - 70 there are 3,333,000 wage -earners in this country. 56 percent of these were rural workers and 26 percent were estate workers working on the tea, rubber and coconut plantations. The urban workers numbered 18 percent. Over the last seven years the economic, social and political problems confronting these three groups of workers have been increasingly acute.
The condition of the peasantry within this social system requires special attention. In the rural areas the lower peasants suffer from the problems of landlessness. An official report of the Kandyan Peasantry Commission appointed by the Bandaranaike government stated that 180 Kandyan families live in each two-acre zone. Ninety families would thus live on one acre. This gives you an idea of the enormity of the problem of landlessness in certain areas. Within this social system utter misery and destitution have become the common lot of the villager. And we find that only 4,000 of the more than 2,000,000 families in this country have a monthly income of Rs. 1,000 and over. [� 1 = Rs. 30 ] Government figures confirm this fact. In brief, two million families have a low income and lead a miserable life. It is under these social conditions that the political unrest unrest arose which led to the April incidents.
It is necessary to bring to your certain specific incidents which occurred in 1971. The Janatha Vimukhti Peramuna was implanted in the rural proletariat, the lumpen proletariat and certain petty-bourgeois layers. In the urban working class and the estates the influence of the Old Left was still traditions of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) were strongest. The SLF won most of its seats in the rural areas. The worst massacres during the April incidents took place in the areas held by the SLFP. The SLFP politicians had shamelessly sown the germs of communal discord against the Tamil minority. In the 1956 election the CP and the LSSP stood for party on the language issue. But what did they do a short time later? They were not only against equal status for Tamil and Sinhala, but opposed even the granting of any lesser rights. It was in these conditions that we became disillusioned with them. That is why we struggled. If anyone willingly risks his or her life, or is prepared to be shackled as a prisoner, this can only be because there is no alternative. Chairman, you are aware that after the government came to power we started our political activities in the open and they were immensely successful. Look back and see the picture of our public meetings held in various parts of the country such as Kandy, Kegalle, Kurunegala and Southern Province and Colombo - you will see the mass of humanity, thousands and thousands of people that flocked round us, to see us and listen to us. And these were not people we had forced or cajoled with the use of guns to attend our rallies, nor have we supplied them with free lorries and buses, but people who had come of their own accord because of their interest in our politics. With every passing day we were moving forward. This process continued while another parallel process was taking place: dissatisfaction with the UNP result, with our blessing, in the election of the United Front government, with over a two-thirds majority. The LSSP and CP had told the people that if they were brought into power with a two-thirds majority they would amend the constitution, change the system of internal administration and open the way to socialism. The ordinary people took them at their world. They expected the new government to perform miracles and that is why they put the cross against the star and key an not against the elephant.
I have already mentioned that in the early days we were not strong in the urban working class. But by 1971 we had begun to spread out from the villages to the towns and, through our political agitational campaigns, our impacts was beginning to be felt in the cities, specifically in certain sections of the working class. Young workers in factories and work-sites were beginning to listen. It was then that the Old Left began to understand the threat we posed to them. They attempted to devise a course of action to deal with us. The first method was branding us as CIA agents, but you are aware that this attack failed. Then they resorted to the second method. This can be described in the words of Mr Sarath Muttettuwagama, a leader of the CP. In a speech made at a CP mass rally in Ratnapura during the later half of 1970, he stated that the repression of the Che Guevarists should not be left to the police. It should be the responsibility of the CP! During the same period the LSSP leaders also discussed the treat we posed. A meeting of their Polit Bureau issued instructions to their locals to unleash physical attacks against us. They asked for police protection to carry out this task. I have already mentioned these facts at our public meetings. When the second method failed, they discussed the matter in the new cabinet and considered ways and means of suppressing the Janatha Vimukhti Peramuna so that it could not become an effective political force. They decided, according to a recent statement by the Prime Minister, not to ban us as it would have made heroes out of us. The capitalist class is well aware of the futility of banning a Marxist party. So this government suspected that even if they banned us we would carry on political activities under another name. They devised an alternative scheme, which was and continue to be implemented.
You are aware that the country is facing a severe economic crisis. It is something which everyone admits. But the crisis has not materialized out of thin air. It existed on 5th April 1971. It was there before that date. At the time the government was not in a position to add to the distress of the people, to place the economic and social burden they have now placed on the masses with impunity, because there existed a revolutionary force that would have roused the people and led them to protest against these measures. It was necessary to destroy our movement before stern measures could be taken. And accordingly they prepared their plans. After January 1971 things came to a head. Mr. S. A. Dissanayake, a former Inspector - General of Police, was appointed Additional Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and External Affairs, with effect from 1 March 1971. Long before this, the CID had been using its full powers to investigate the activities of the JVP. A separate unit had been set up, which had gathered sufficient facts by April 1971 through raids and arrests of comrades from various parts of the country. They also planted agents inside the JVP rank and file.
By 1 March 1971 arrangements had been completed for the deployment of military units in various parts of the country to collect intelligence about our activities. Press reports in relation to these manoeuvres appeared between 1 and 5 March. In the same week police power were vested in officers of the army. On 5 March the police rehearsed a plan in order to find out how much time it would take them when the alarm was sounded. This rehearsal was to test alertness in emergency and it was conducted in Colombo as well as in other parts of the island. On the sixth there was an attack on the US Embassy which supplied them with the excuse needs to repress the revolutionary movement. On 13 March I was arrested and on16 March a State of Embassy was declared. 4,098 people were arrested before 5th April 1971.
In April 1971 the revolutionary preconditions for the seizure of power by the proletariat and for an armed revolutionary struggle were absent. That is my view. In the absence of a revolutionary situation - i. e. both objective and subjective conditions - an armed was not possible.
My view is that conditions were not ripe for organizing an armed revolutionary uprising to seize state power. The objective conditions were maturing fast, but they were still unripe. It had not reached a stage where the masses saw no other solution but revolution. It is true, however, that then, as now, society was moving in that direction. The subjective conditions were also lacking: that is, the existence of a revolutionary party that has steeled itself, won the support of the masses and is fit to lead them in an armed struggle for power. The Janatha Vimukhti Peramuna was developing and moving towards that goal, but had not reached full maturity. We had failed at that time to established the JVP in the Northern and eastern provinces and in the Estate sector as a political force. And then there was the question of mass support. It is true that out of the millions who voted for the Coalition Government, tens of thousands had by this time washed their hands of it. It is also true that this section was the politically developed section. They were abandoning the Coalition Government and moving Leftwards towards the JVP. But there was a section which, although disgusted and frustrated, did not break away from the government during those either months. On other words the JVP had not yet reached the stage where the masses could see it as a real alternative to the government, accept its leadership and join in the class under its banner. In our Marxist conception, a revolution - an armed uprising - is not something done behind the backs of the masses.
JUSTICE FERNANDO: Have revolutionaries in any part of the world never made mistakes?
THIRTEEN SUSPECT : Mistakes have been made. In fact they have learnt lessons from these mistakes. Mistakes can happen in the future as well.
JUSTICE FERNANDO : I said a mistake. I meant a miscalculation.
THIRTEEN SUSPECT : There can be no revolution without the participation and active support of the people. That is our stand.
I told you earlier that I reject the position that it was a JVP decision to seize state power on 5 April 1971. I do not admit that. But as I discovered later and something I do not deny is that there have been instances when certain comrades of the JVP, in the face of intolerable repression, restored to a struggle against such repression.
In March 1971 a class need arose for the ruling to suppress the revolutionary movements of this country, especially the JVP. They acted accordingly. the April incidents were the result. I interpret the process as one initiated by the counter revolution. This does not mean that anyone who acted against capitalist repression on 5 April, or had mistaken a decision taken by other to be a JVP decision, or even decided on such a course on their own in the absence of another alternative, was thus a counter-revolutionary. A number of close comrades of mine are no longer living. The entire revolutionary leadership of the Matara district exists no more. Comrade Susil Wickrema, Comrade Jayatissa of Deniyaya, Comrades Piyatissa, Loku Mahatmaya, Suraweera, Jayaweera, the two Bogahawatta brothers were all both personal friends and fellow comrades. No one can speak about their fate. On enquiring from their homes all I have learnt is that are no longer among the living.
For me, Honourable Chairman, the April episode was an occasion when the capitalist class found its existence as a class increasingly threatened by the proletariat. It is a result of a counter-revolutionary course of action on which the capitalists system from the proletariat. It has been part of that course of action to ban the JVP today. A large number of persons connected with the JVP, but belonging to the Leftist parties, have been murdered. A large number of persons connected with the JVP have been put in prison, as have many who had no connection with us. It has become possible to continue the movement in general.
In conclusion this is what I have to say: I admit that the capitalist class has been temporary victorious. But I do not see it as a defeat for the proletariat. This is only a big retreat for the proletariat; yes, I call it a big retreat. A retreat is not a defeat, but a phase from which it is possible to recover and march again to certain victory. No revolutionary movement has raced non-stop to victory in a straight line from start to finish. Forward marches followed by retreats are quit common in revolutionary movements. That is the position with which we are confronted today and it is from this position that I have come to give evidence before you. I have not spoken here by stretching my principles for personal gain. I remain an unrepentant Marxist and what I am defending here are Marxist principles rather than my person. For as a revolutionary Marxist I have nothing else to defend.
Whatever the capitalist class may have expected to gain through the April incidents, their ultimate result has already been expressed by a revolutionary poet in the following stanza:
The poet expresses himself in clear and pain terms. The flowers of revolution have blossomed, but how they lie withered and dead. But their perfume has not ceased. To enhance that perfume and with that aim in view other buds will continue to bloom. In fact, gentlemen, the capitalist cause has no real reason to celebrate its success. For in the class struggle victory is a see-saw until the proletariat finally emerges victorious. That is our belief. I have concluded my evidence.