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168-719: The LSSP emerged as a major political force in the Sri Lankan independence movement during the 1940s, during which time the party was forced to go underground due to its opposition to the British war effort. The party played an instrumental role in the Indian independence and later Quit India Movement through the Bolshevik–Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma (BLPI). Its efforts also contributed to India gaining Independence from Britain in 1947, followed by Sri Lanka in 1948. In

336-514: A socialist revolution in contemporary society is inevitable. While the inevitability of an eventual socialist revolution is a controversial debate among many different Marxist schools of thought , all Marxists believe socialism is a necessity. Marxists argue that a socialist society is far better for most of the populace than its capitalist counterpart. Prior to the Russian Revolution , Vladimir Lenin wrote: "The socialisation of production

504-519: A Marxist would conclude that capitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat; therefore, capitalism will inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution . In a socialist society, private property —as the means of production—would be replaced by cooperative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is, production for use . Friedrich Engels explained that "the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which

672-475: A backlash against Marxist thought in post-communist states, such as Poland . However, it remains prominent in the sociological research sanctioned and supported by communist states, such as in China . Marxian economics is a school of economic thought tracing its foundations to the critique of classical political economy first expounded upon by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxian economics concerns itself with

840-595: A boycott of the country by the oil multi-nationals; the boycott was broken with help from the Kansas Oil Producers Co-operative and the Romanian Government. A parallel process was one of increasing self-confidence and unity amongst the Ceylonese left-wing. In the parliament they were in the opposition. On May Day 1963 the three main left parties (LSSP, CP and MEP) held a massive joint rally. That

1008-526: A certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution ." These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society which are, in turn, fought out at

1176-542: A concrete study of the actual conditions in Europe. According to the Marxist theoretician and revolutionary socialist Vladimir Lenin, "the principal content of Marxism" was "Marx's economic doctrine." Marx demonstrated how the capitalist bourgeoisie and their economists were promoting what he saw as the lie that "the interests of the capitalist and of the worker are ... one and the same." He believed that they did this by purporting

1344-626: A dramatic appearance on the platform at this rally, but the police were powerless to arrest him. However, the police managed to arrest him a couple of days later at the Hulftsdorp residence of Vernon Gunasekera, the Secretary of the LSSP. However, the necessary legal preparations had been made. A writ of habeas corpus was served and the case was called before a bench of three Supreme Court judges presided over by Chief Justice Sir Sidney Abrahams . H. V. Perera,

1512-413: A labourer—is synonymous with surplus labour, and capitalist exploitation is thus realised as deriving surplus value from the worker. In pre-capitalist economies , exploitation of the worker was achieved via physical coercion . Under the capitalist mode of production, workers do not own the means of production and must "voluntarily" enter into an exploitative work relationship with a capitalist to earn

1680-574: A large meeting in Badulla on 12 May, and the police were powerless to act. At Wewessa Estate the workers set up an elected council and the Superintendent agreed to act in consultation with the Workers' Council. An armed police party that went to restore 'law and order' was disarmed by the workers. The strike wave was finally beaten back by a wave of violence by the police, aided by floods which cut Uva off from

1848-496: A materialist theory of history, Marx did not claim to have produced a master key to history and that the materialist conception of history is not "an historico-philosophic theory of the marche générale , imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself." In a letter to the editor of the Russian newspaper paper Otechestvennyje Zapiski (1877), he explained that his ideas were based upon

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2016-711: A militia commander was shot for mutiny. Inspector-General of Police Herbert Dowbiggin became notorious for his methods. Hundreds of Sinhalese Buddhists were arrested by the British colonial government during the Riots of 1915. Those imprisoned without charges included future leaders of the independence movement; F.R. Senanayake, D. S. Senanayake, Anagarika Dharmapala, Dr C A Hewavitarne , Arthur V Dias , H. M. Amarasuriya , Dr. W. A. de Silva , Baron Jayatilaka , Edwin Wijeyeratne , A. E. Goonesinghe , John Silva, Piyadasa Sirisena and others. Sir James Peiris initiated and drafted

2184-558: A model for the Third World and remains so today, was based on a report on Pharmaceuticals in Sri Lanka of which the authors were Dr S. A. Wickremesinghe and Seneka Bibile. The Congress of Samasamaja Youth Leagues and the other bodies affiliated to the party (membership of the party proper was still restricted to a small cadre, on a Leninist model) saw unprecedented growth at this time. The leadership looked to Salvador Allende 's Chile as

2352-618: A model of revolution through parliamentary means. Leslie Goonewardene, easily the most cosmopolitan of the party's leaders, established contact with the 'Captains' of the Movement of the Armed Forces ('Movimento das Forças Armadas' - MFA) of Portugal, after the Carnation Revolution of April 1974; he also became a theoretician of Eurocommunism and its application to Sri Lanka, writing a pamphlet 'Can we Get To Socialism This Way'. In 1975,

2520-567: A new party, Viplavakari Lanka Sama Samaja Party (VLSSP). At the 1952 general election, the electoral performance was harmed by the relative prosperity due to the price of natural rubber being driven up by the Korean War . Also, the disenfranchisement of the Indian Tamil estate workers by the UNP government deprived the LSSP of one of its main bases. Moreover, it damaged the electoral fortunes of its ally,

2688-403: A post-capitalist society—positive humanism, socialism, Communism, realm of free individuality, free association of producers, etc. He used these terms completely interchangeably. The notion that 'socialism' and 'Communism' are distinct historical stages is alien to his work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death." According to orthodox Marxist theory, overthrowing capitalism by

2856-576: A school of thought, Marxism has had a profound effect on society and global academia. To date, it has influenced many fields, including anthropology , archaeology , art theory , criminology , cultural studies , economics , education , ethics , film theory , geography , historiography , literary criticism , media studies , philosophy , political science , political economy , psychoanalysis , science studies , sociology , urban planning , and theatre . Marxism seeks to explain social phenomena within any given society by analysing

3024-611: A secret memorandum with the support of Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan and E. W. Perera braved mine and submarine-infested seas (as well as the Police) to carry it in the soles of his shoes to the Secretary of State for the Colonies , pleading for the repeal of martial law and describing the actions committed by the Police led by Dowbiggin during the riots. The British government ordered the release of

3192-730: A vote of censure on the Governor for having ordered the deportation of Bracegirdle without the advice of the acting Home Minister. Even the Board of Ministers had started feeling the heat of public opinion and the vote was passed by 34 votes to 7. On the same day, there was a 50,000-strong rally at Galle Face Green , which was presided over by Colvin R de Silva and addressed by Dr. N.M. Perera, Philip Gunawardena, Leslie Goonewardene, A. E. Goonesinha, George E. de Silva, D. M. Rajapakse, Siripala Samarakkody , Vernon Gunasekera, Handy Perimbanayagam, Mrs. K. Natesa Iyer and S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike . Bracegirdle made

3360-420: A white comrade (applause) .... He has generously consented to address you. I call upon Comrade Bracegirdle to address you.' Bracegirdle rose to speak amid tumultuous applause and shouts of 'Samy, Samy' (master, master). The authorities were on hand to note his speech: 'the most noteworthy feature of this meeting ... was the presence of Bracegirdle and his attack on the planters. He claimed unrivaled knowledge of

3528-685: A word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." Marx considered recurring class conflicts as the driving force of human history as such conflicts have manifested as distinct transitional stages of development in Western Europe . Accordingly, Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production: While historical materialism has been referred to as

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3696-408: Is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces." Because the ruling class controls the society's means of production, the superstructure of society (i.e. the ruling social ideas)

3864-453: Is a study of educational reform in the U.S. and its relationship to the reproduction of capitalism and the possibilities of utilising its contradictions in the revolutionary movement. The work of Peter McLaren , especially since the turn of the 21st century, has further developed Marxist educational theory by developing revolutionary critical pedagogy, as has the work of Glenn Rikowski, Dave Hill, and Paula Allman. Other Marxists have analysed

4032-401: Is bound to lead to the conversion of the means of production into the property of society. ... This conversion will directly result in an immense increase in productivity of labour, a reduction of working hours, and the replacement of the remnants, the ruins of small-scale, primitive, disunited production by collective and improved labour." The failure of the 1905 Russian Revolution , along with

4200-403: Is certain and that is that I am not a Marxist." The discovery of the materialist conception of history, or rather, the consistent continuation and extension of materialism into the domain of social phenomenon, removed two chief defects of earlier historical theories. In the first place, they at best examined only the ideological motives of the historical activity of human beings, without grasping

4368-402: Is determined by the best interests of the ruling class. In The German Ideology , Marx says that "[t]he ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force." The term political economy initially referred to the study of the material conditions of economic production in

4536-449: Is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you're lost in a forest, not knowing anything. — Cuban revolutionary and Marxist–Leninist politician Fidel Castro on discovering Marxism, 2009 This new way of thinking was invented because socialists believed that common ownership of the means of production (i.e. the industries , land, wealth of nature, trade apparatus and wealth of

4704-448: Is introduced. Because the surplus produced by the workers is the property of the society as a whole, there are no classes of producers and appropriators. Additionally, as the state originates in the bands of retainers hired by the first ruling classes to protect their economic privilege, it will wither away as its conditions of existence have disappeared. According to The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx , "Marx used many terms to refer to

4872-470: Is necessary to understand his later works properly. Contrary to the official dialectical materialism of the Soviet Union and interpretations of Marx rooted in the structural Marxism of Louis Althusser , Marxist humanists argue that Marx's work was an extension or transcendence of enlightenment humanism . Whereas other Marxist philosophies see Marxism as natural science , Marxist humanism reaffirms

5040-465: Is not prerequisite. In addition to criticism, Marx has also praised some of the results of capitalism stating that it "has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together" and that it "has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal arrangements." Marx posited that the remaining feudalist societies in the world and forms of socialism that did not conform with his writings would be replaced by communism in

5208-551: Is often critical of reformist positions such as those held by social democrats . Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France ; emphasising the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its destiny without the need for a vanguard party to mediate or aid its liberation. Along with anarchism , libertarian Marxism

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5376-761: Is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism . Libertarian Marxism includes currents such as autonomism , council communism , De Leonism , Lettrism , parts of the New Left , Situationism , Freudo-Marxism (a form of psychoanalysis ), Socialisme ou Barbarie and workerism . Libertarian Marxism has often strongly influenced both post-left and social anarchists . Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism have included Maurice Brinton , Cornelius Castoriadis , Guy Debord , Raya Dunayevskaya , Daniel Guérin , C. L. R. James , Rosa Luxemburg , Antonio Negri , Anton Pannekoek , Fredy Perlman , Ernesto Screpanti , E. P. Thompson , Raoul Vaneigem , and Yanis Varoufakis ,

5544-617: The Battle of Assaye ; following the Battle of Waterloo , the British Empire became more influential. Its prestige was only briefly dented by setbacks in India , Afghanistan and South Africa . It was virtually unchallenged until 1914. The British were very powerful during their rule in Sri Lanka and left more of a lasting impact than any other power. The formation of the Batavian Republic in

5712-557: The CIC , which went unrepresented. In 1953, the LSSP took the lead in organising the Hartal . The immediate cause for the Hartal was a hike in the price of rice from 25 cent to 70 cent per measure by the UNP government. At the time, J.R. Jayawardena was the finance minister of the country. Maintaining the price of rice at 25 cent had been an electoral promise given by UNP in the 1952 elections, and when

5880-573: The Hatton constituency, to 'organise an Estate Labour Federation in Nawalapitiya or Hatton, with an idea that he may be a proper candidate to be the future Secretary of the Labour Federation.' [6] On 3 April, at a meeting at Nawalapitiya attended by two thousand estate workers, at which Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya spoke, Dr. N. M. Perera said: 'Comrades, I have an announcement to make. You know we have

6048-573: The Lanka Estate Workers' Union (LEWU) intervened in a strike at Mooloya, becoming the harbinger of a wave of trade-union action on the plantations. Meanwhile, in the LSSP a number of members had become influenced by the ideas of the Left Opposition led by Leon Trotsky . Individual party members, notably Philip Gunawardena , had encountered Trotskyist groups earlier during stays in Britain and

6216-672: The Moscow -oriented focus of the CP. That year's joint May Day rally was said to be the biggest ever to take place in Sri Lanka. In 1970, the United Front, of which the LSSP was part, was elected to power in landslide. The LSSP had 19 MPs in the House of Representatives. Dr NM Perera, Dr Colvin R de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene became Ministers of Finance, Constitutional Affairs with Plantation Industries and Transport and Communication, respectively. The Party

6384-510: The Mudaliyars , an anglicised class of new elites created by the British rulers. The collaborationist compradore elements of the elite, led by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike , F.R. Senanayake and D.S. Senanayake succeeded the populists led by Dharmapala from the leadership of the temperance movement. A jolt was given to the British aura of invincibility by the German cruiser Emden , which attacked

6552-603: The Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP). This was compounded by the death of N. M. Perera in 1979. His funeral was one of the largest ever seen in Colombo. In 1980, an even worse catastrophe occurred. The UNP Government provoked a strike in the Railway Department. The strike became a general strike . The government cracked down on the trade unions, jailing many labour leaders, including Anil Moonesinghe and G.E.H. Perera of

6720-648: The Royal Navy and the RAF continued to have bases on the island (at Trincomalee and Katunayake ). The Government was heavily pro-British and anti- Soviet . The new government proceeded to disenfranchise plantation workers of Indian Tamils descent, using the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 and the Parliamentary Elections Amendment Act of 1949. These measures were intended primarily to undermine

6888-587: The Siam Nikaya in 1764, just 10 years after it had been established by a Thai monk. Around 1800 they organised the Amarapura Nikaya , which became hegemonic in the low-country by the mid-19th century. Buddhism was enforced by kings and priests because they belonged to the Brahmin caste which allowed them to have the power to push what religion they wanted to practice. Buddhism practiced among higher castes (Brahmins)

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7056-599: The "Golden era" of LSSP. At the time, the most powerful trade unions in the country supported LSSP politics. The most prominent trade union in the public sector in this period was the Government Clerical Service Union , which gave the a great support to the political struggle of LSSP. The forefront leader of GCSU, I. J. Wickrema , openly appealed for support to the LSSP-CP coalition in order to defeat imperialism. The GCSU publication Red Tape constantly criticised

7224-464: The "sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society" and forms a society's economic base. The base includes the material forces of production such as the labour , means of production and relations of production , i.e. the social and political arrangements that regulate production and distribution. From this base rises a superstructure of legal and political "forms of social consciousness " that derive from

7392-513: The 'Sinhala Only' policy. In July 1959, both LSSP and the Communist Party withdrew their support for the government, as inner-party feuds within the SLFP had resulted in a temporary victory for the right-wing and expulsions of leftist ministers like Philip Gunawardena. In March 1960, the LSSP contested the general elections on the slogan 'forward to a Sama Samaja Government'. The votes won by the LSSP,

7560-526: The 'Workers' Opposition'. After the war, they reconstructed LSSP as an independent party. Members of the other section, formed out of the exiled BLPI nucleus, effectively maintained a separate party, the Bolshevik Samasamaja Party . The latter group functioned as the Ceylon section of BLPI and was led by Colvin R de Silva, Leslie Goonawardene and Edmund Samarakkoddy. The relation between the two groups

7728-646: The 1940s, the Western Marxist school became accepted within Western academia, subsequently fracturing into several different perspectives, such as the Frankfurt School or critical theory . The legacy of Critical Theory as a major offshoot of Marxism is controversial. The common thread linking Marxism and Critical theory is an interest in struggles to dismantle structures of oppression, exclusion, and domination. Due to its former state-supported position, there has been

7896-515: The 1970s, when it was again leading a coalition government with multiple of its leaders in key cabinet roles. In recent elections, the party has served a role in the coalition government. As of 2020, the party holds local government roles, as well as the governorship of the North Central Province. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was the first modern political party in Ceylon , later Sri Lanka. It

8064-490: The 19th century remained in existence down to 1972. The only significant modification to the colonial economy was the addition of a rubber sector in the mid-country areas. A new body of urban capitalists was growing in the low country, around transport, shop-keeping, distillery, plantation, and wood-work industries. These entrepreneurs were from many castes and they strongly resented the historically unprecedented and unbuddhistic practice of 'caste discrimination' adopted by

8232-797: The British-owned plantations, basically aimed at winning the right of organisation. There were two main plantation unions, Iyer's Ceylon Indian Congress and the All-Ceylon Estate Workers Union (later the Lanka Estate Workers Union , LEWU) led by the Samasamajists . In the Central Province the strike wave reached its zenith in the Mool Oya Estate strike, which was led by Samasamajists including Veluchamy , Secretary of

8400-780: The Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka into something resembling the non-conformist Protestant model. A series of debates against clergymen of the Methodist and the Anglican church was organised, culminating in the 'defeat' of the latter at Panadura by modern logical argument. The Buddhist revival was aided by the Theosophists , led by American Col. Henry Steel Olcott , who helped establish Buddhist schools such as Ananda College , Colombo; Dharmaraja College , Kandy; Maliyadeva College , Kurunegala; Mahinda College , Galle; and Musaeus College , Colombo; at

8568-663: The CNC petitioned the colonial government to increase their powers, instead of demanding independence, or even dominion status. They were forced to withdraw their 'Ministers' Memorandum' after a vigorous campaign by the Youth Leagues. [2] [3] The South Colombo Youth League became involved in a strike at the Wellawatte Spinning and weaving mills. It published an irregular journal in Sinhala , Kamkaruwa (The Worker). In protest against

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8736-621: The Ceylon section of BLPI. Through the BLPI, the Ceylonese trotskyists attained their formal membership in the Fourth International . The Ceylonese Samasamajists who went to India participated actively along with the BLPI in the struggle for independence that commenced in August 1942 in India . It was generally realised that the impending open revolt against imperialism in India was going to be decisive for

8904-517: The Colonial Government began an unsuccessful manhunt. LSSP started a campaign to defend him. At that year's May Day rally at Price Park, placards declaring 'We want Bracegirdle – Deport Stubbs' were displayed, and a resolution was passed condemning Stubbs, demanding his removal and the withdrawal of the deportation order. On 5 May, in the State Council, NM Perera and Philip Gunawardena moved

9072-754: The Communists and the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (a new party, not the 1956 front) of Philip Gunawardena, were sufficient to have made them the biggest bloc in Parliament. However, due to their contesting separately, the LSSP and the MEP won just 10 seats each, the CP a mere 3. Elections were held again in July and the LSSP had a no-contest pact with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) of Sirimavo Bandaranaike , which

9240-410: The Estate Workers Union. In this strike, on 19 January 1940, the worker Govindan was shot and killed by the police. As a result of agitation both within the State Council and outside, the Government was compelled to appoint a Commission of Inquiry. Colvin R. de Silva appeared for the widow of Govindan and exposed the combined role of the police and employers in the white plantation raj. After Mool Oya,

9408-467: The Faizpur Sessions of the Indian National Congress in 1936. In April 1937 Kamaladevi Chattopadyaya , a leader of the CSP addressed a large number of meetings in various parts of the country on a national tour organised by the LSSP. This helped to establish the indivisibility of the fights for the independence of Sri Lanka and India. In Jaffna, where Kamaladevi also spoke, the left movement found consistent and loyal supporters from among one-time members of

9576-463: The Flowers which appeared in the Ceylon Daily News and criticised the practice of forcing Sri Lankan schoolchildren to purchase poppies to help British veterans at the expense of their own, which caused her to be vilified by her compatriots. The South Colombo Youth League now got involved in the Suriya-Mal Movement and revived it on a new anti-imperialist and anti-war basis. Yearly until the Second World War, young men and women sold Suriya flowers on

9744-409: The Government Workers' Trade Union Federation. The strike was crushed and with it the LSSP trade union movement. In 1982 the LSSP split over the question of a coalition with the SLFP. Anil Moonesinghe, Cholomondely Goonewardena, G. E. H. Perera, Wilfred Senanayake and others formed the Sri Lanka Sama Samaja Party (SLSSP), which dissolved the next year and merged with the SLFP. Moonesinghe charged that

9912-400: The Indian Tamils. Others who supported them from time to time were George E. de Silva of Kandy, B. H. Aluwihare of Matale, D. P. Jayasuriya of Gampaha, A. Ratnayake of Dumbara and Susantha de Fonseka , Deputy Speaker. They also demanded the replacement of English as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil . In November 1936, motions that 'in the Municipal and Police Courts of the Island

10080-432: The Industrial Revolution which undermines the democratic agency of citizens. Marxists differ in their positions towards democracy. Types of democracy in Marxism include Soviet democracy , New Democracy , Whole-process people's democracy and can include voting on how surplus labour is to be organised. According to democratic centralism political decisions reached by voting in the party are binding for all members of

10248-430: The JYC. On 28 November 1936, at a meeting in Colombo , the president of the LSSP, Dr. Inusha de Silva, introduced Mark Anthony Bracegirdle , a British/Australian former planter saying: 'This is the first time a white comrade has ever attended a party meeting held at a street corner.' He made his first public speech in Sri Lanka, warning that the capitalists were trying to split the workers of Sri Lanka and put one against

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10416-401: The LSSP and the BSP had weakened the movement, and in particular the BSP which was clearly the smaller of the two parties. A process of reunification was initiated, and in 1950 the BSP merged into the LSSP. Through the reunification, the LSSP became the Ceylonese section of the Fourth International . However, Philip Gunawardena opposed the reconciliation with the BSP. Thus he left LSSP and formed

10584-495: The LSSP had been taken over by the BSP faction. Scuffles broke out between the LSSP and the SLSSP at the joint May Day procession that year. At the Presidential election held that year, the LSSP put forward Dr Colvin R de Silva as its candidate, the SLSSP backed Hector Kobbekaduwa of the SLFP. Dr Colvin R de Silva was beaten into 5th place. Sri Lankan independence movement [REDACTED] Sri Lanka portal [REDACTED] The Sri Lankan independence movement

10752-422: The LSSP maintained a clear distance from the Indian radical left , and considered the Communist Party of India to be an extremist force. In 1937, the British Colonial Governor Sir Reginald Stubbs attempted to deport a young Anglo-Australian planter, Mark Anthony Bracegirdle , who had joined the LSSP. He went into hiding in defiance of the Governor and the LSSP started a campaign to defend him. He appeared on

10920-437: The LSSP went into a no-contest pact with the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (People's United Front) of SWRD Bandaranaike , which he had formed with Philip Gunawardena and the VLSSP. The MEP won a landslide in the polls held that year. The LSSP once again became the main opposition party, and N. M. Perera became the Leader of Opposition. Through this, the LSSP supported the reforms initiated by the new government, but strongly opposed

11088-438: The LSSP(R). The Coalition Government fell in 1965, due to the desertion of several members. However, the number of votes won by the LSSP increased at the general election held that year. After the election, supporters of the party were subject to a co-ordinated campaign of victimisation by the new seven-party coalition led by the UNP. In 1968, the LSSP joined the SLFP and the CP in a United Front ; one that suffered clashes due to

11256-428: The Left electorally. Of these acts, N. M. Perera said: 'I thought racialism of this type died with Houston Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler . I do not believe that anyone claiming to be a Statesman would ask us to accede to a bill of this nature ... We cannot proceed as if we were God's chosen race quite apart from the rest of the world; that we and we alone have the right to be citizens of this country.' The split between

11424-411: The Ministers' support for the British war effort. The Ministers brought motions gifting the Sri Lankan taxpayers' money to the British war machine, which were opposed by the pro-independence members of the state council. There was considerable opposition to the war in Sri Lanka, particularly among the workers and the nationalists, many of the latter of whom hoped for a German victory. Among Buddhists, there

11592-405: The Netherlands as an ally and of the French Directory , led to a British attack on Ceylon in 1795 as part of Britain's war against the French Republic. The Kandyan Kingdom collaborated with the British expeditionary forces against the Dutch, as it had with the Dutch against the Portuguese. Once the Dutch had been evicted, their sovereignty ceded by the Treaty of Amiens and subsequent revolts in

11760-436: The Sihlanese kingdom and it is thought that Buddhism has many aspects that stemmed from Asoka. Similar to Asoka (Practice among the Sinhalese) "Such establishment of Buddhism in a country was evidently a departure in the history of that religion and seems to have been an innovation of Asoka". The British attempt at giving a Protestant Christian education to the young men of the commercial classes backfired, as they transformed

11928-515: The UNP government and asked the people to support the left. In 1964, the LSSP held a conference at which the majority agreed with a theoretical categorisation of the SLFP by Hector Abhayavardhana as a petty bourgeois party, leaving the door open to a united front with it. A minority faction, led by Colvin R de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene, opposed the move but opted to stay within the Party. Another minority faction led by Edmund Samarakkody , Merryl Fernando, V Karalasingham and Bala Tampoe , left

12096-517: The USA. The Trotskyists within the LSSP came together and formed a secret faction known as the "T" (after Trotsky) group. The group's original members were Philip Gunawardena, N. M. Perera, Colvin R. de Silva, Leslie Goonewardene, Robert Gunawardena and Vernon Gunasekera, the Party Secretary. They were later joined by Edmund Samarakkody and V. Karalasingham . In 1940, the LSSP split with the expulsion of

12264-611: The United Front broke up with the expulsion of the LSSP ministers. The party then pursued a line of forming a new socialist alliance, the Socialist United Front (SUF). This was finally formed in 1977 with the CPSL and with the People's Democratic Party (PDP), made up of leftist elements from the SLFP led by Nanda Ellawala . In 1977, the LSSP and CP lost all their Parliamentary seats, and the Left

12432-804: The Uva Rebellion or collaborating with the colonial power). The leadership passed for the first time in the Kandyan provinces into the hands of ordinary people, non-aristocrats. The leaders were yeomen- artisans , resembling the Levellers in England's Civil War period and mechanics such as Paul Revere and Tom Paine who were at the heart of the American Revolution . However, in the words of Colvin R. de Silva , 'it had leaders but no leadership. The old feudalists were crushed and powerless. No new class capable of leading

12600-497: The Waste Lands Ordinance), a modern enclosure movement and reduced to penury. In 1848 the abortive Matale Rebellion , led by Hennedige Francisco Fernando ( Puran Appu ) and Gongalegoda Banda was the first transitional step towards abandoning the feudal form of revolt, being fundamentally a peasant revolt. The masses were without the leadership of their native King (deposed in 1815) or their chiefs (either crushed after

12768-634: The achievement of complete national independence, the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the abolition of inequalities arising from differences of race , caste , creed or gender . Its deputies in the State Council after the 1936 general election, N. M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena and the other leaders Leslie Goonewardene and Colvin R. de Silva were aided in this struggle by not quite so radical members like Don Alwin Rajapaksa of Ruhuna and K. Natesa Iyer of

12936-556: The administration of General Secretary Joseph Stalin , a great emphasis was placed on the adoption of Marxist archaeology throughout the country. These theoretical developments were subsequently adopted by archaeologists working in capitalist states outside of the Leninist bloc, most notably by the Australian academic V. Gordon Childe , who used Marxist theory in his understandings of the development of human society. Marxist sociology, as

13104-509: The analysis of crisis in capitalism, the role and distribution of the surplus product and surplus value in various types of economic systems , the nature and origin of economic value , the impact of class and class struggle on economic and political processes, and the process of economic evolution . Although the Marxian school is considered heterodox , ideas that have come out of Marxian economics have contributed to mainstream understanding of

13272-414: The awareness—of itself and the social world—that a social class possesses and its capacity to act rationally in its best interests. Class consciousness is required before a social class can effect a successful revolution and, thus, the dictatorship of the proletariat . Without defining ideology , Marx used the term to describe the production of images of social reality. According to Engels, "ideology

13440-575: The banking, education, industry, media and trade sectors. In 1964, the party joined the United Front (Sri Lanka) , and formed the Socialist SLFP government , leading to its expulsion from the Fourth International . Through their election landslide in 1964, they brought the world's first non-hereditary female head of government in modern history , Sirimavo Bandaranaike to power as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka . The party peaked in political strength in

13608-417: The capitalist system. In Marxism, political economy is the study of the means of production, specifically of capital and how that manifests as economic activity. Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn't even know where north or south is. If you don't eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society

13776-460: The collective published an irregular journal in Sinhala , Kamkaruwa (The Worker). In 1933 the group got involved in the Suriya-Mal movement , which had been formed to provide support for indigenous ex-servicemen by the sale of Suriya ( Portia tree ) flowers. The Suriya-Mal movement surged as a reaction to the fact that at the time Poppy Day funds went solely to British ex-servicemen. The movement

13944-593: The colonial authorities to grant increased power to local ministers. The group, through the South Colombo Youth League, became involved in a strike at the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills in 1933. The mills; the island’s largest textile factory at that time with 1,400 workers (two-thirds of Indian origin and one-third Sinhalese), gave the members of the Youth League a chance for leadership as well as experience in trade union agitation. During this period,

14112-598: The colonial power began in 1817 with the Uva Rebellion when the same aristocracy rose against British rule in a rebellion in which their villagers participated. They were defeated by the British. An attempt at rebellion sparked again briefly in 1830. The Kandy and Sinhalese peasantry were stripped of their lands by the Crown Lands (Encroachments) Ordinance No. 12 of 1840 (sometimes called the Crown Lands Ordinance or

14280-415: The complex dynamics of modern society." Influenced by the thought of Karl Marx , Marxist sociology emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim are considered seminal influences in early sociology . The first Marxist school of sociology was known as Austro-Marxism , of which Carl Grünberg and Antonio Labriola were among its most notable members. During

14448-639: The comprador elite which opposed Dharmapala. This same elite vigorously opposed the grant of universal suffrage by the Donoughmore Constitutional Commission . Dharmapala was hounded out of the country by a press campaign by the Lake House group of the press baron D. R. Wijewardena . His mantle fell on the next generation, epitomised by the likes of Walisinghe Harischandra, Gunapala Malalasekera, and L.H. Mettananda, who were radicalised by Dharmapala's words. The young people who stepped into

14616-399: The concept that "the fastest possible growth of productive capital " was best for wealthy capitalists and workers because it provided them with employment. Exploitation is a matter of surplus labour —the amount of labour performed beyond what is received in goods. Exploitation has been a socioeconomic feature of every class society and is one of the principal features distinguishing

14784-410: The country to a complete standstill. Afraid of a revolution in the making, the government cabinet sought refuge on HMS  Newfoundland , a Royal Navy warship offshore. The mass upsurge that accompanied the action of the strikers caused Dudley Senanayake to resign from the premiership. The Hartal emoboldended the LSSP to start to consider that the party might be able to seize state power. In 1956

14952-458: The county's leading civil lawyer, volunteered his services free on behalf of Bracegirdle; he was made a Queen's Counsel (QC) on the day that Bracegirdle appeared in court. On 18 May order was made that he could not be deported for exercising his right to free speech, and Bracegirdle was a free man. After the outbreak of the Second World War, the independence agitators turned to opposition to

15120-576: The cruiser. Another jolt to the aura of British invincibility was their defeat in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. In 1915 commercial-ethnic rivalry erupted into a riot in the Colombo against the Muslims, with Christians participating as much as Buddhists. The British colonial authorities reacted heavy-handedly, as the riot was also directed against them. Dharmapala had his legs broken and was confined to Jaffna; his brother died there. Captain D. E. Henry Pedris ,

15288-592: The dismay of the British Colonial government; one that they were trying to dismantle. Around this time, the LSSP began fraternal relations with the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) of India. Mrs Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya of the CSP was invited by the LSSP for a highly successful political tour of the island. Leslie Goonewardene was also sent as a delegate to the CSP. Despite their move towards Indian relations,

15456-493: The doctrine that "man is the measure of all things"—that humans are essentially different to the rest of the natural order and should be treated so by Marxist theory. According to a 2007 survey of American professors by Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, 17.6% of social science professors and 5.0% of humanities professors identify as Marxists, while between 0 and 2% of professors in all other disciplines identify as Marxists. The theoretical development of Marxist archaeology

15624-425: The economic base that conditions both the superstructure and the dominant ideology of a society. Conflicts between the development of material productive forces and the relations of production provoke social revolutions , whereby changes to the economic base lead to the superstructure's social transformation . This relationship is reflexive in that the base initially gives rise to the superstructure and remains

15792-408: The end of class society, which Marx saw as the fundamental division of all hitherto existing history. Marx saw the fundamental nature of capitalist society as little different from that of a slave society in that one small group of society exploits the larger group. Through common ownership of the means of production, the profit motive is eliminated, and the motive of furthering human flourishing

15960-800: The eradication of inequalities imposed by caste . In 1927, the JYC invited the Indian independence movement leader Mahatma Gandhi to visit Jaffna. The JYC led a successful boycott of the first State Council elections in Jaffna in 1931, arguing that the Donoughmore reforms did not concede enough self-government. [1] In the 1930s the Youth Leagues were formed in the South, around a core of intellectuals who had returned from education in Britain, influenced by leftist ideals. The Ministers of

16128-405: The failure of socialist movements to resist the outbreak of World War I , led to renewed theoretical effort and valuable contributions from Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg towards an appreciation of Marx's crisis theory and efforts to formulate a theory of imperialism . Karl Marx criticised liberal democracy as not democratic enough due to the unequal socio-economic situation of the workers during

16296-491: The forms and pedagogical processes of capitalist and communist education, such as Tyson E. Lewis, Noah De Lissovoy, Gregory Bourassa, and Derek R. Ford. Curry Malott has developed a Marxist history of education in the U.S., and Marvin Gettleman examined the history of communist education. Sandy Grande has synthesised Marxist educational theory with Indigenous pedagogy, while others like John Holt analyse adult education from

16464-482: The foundation of a form of social organisation . Those newly formed social organisations can then act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure so that rather than being static, the relationship is dialectic , expressed and driven by conflicts and contradictions. Engels clarified: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave , patrician and plebeian , lord and serf , guild -master and journeyman , in

16632-405: The future in a similar manner as with capitalism. Marx distinguishes social classes based on two criteria, i.e. ownership of means of production and control over the labour power of others. Following this criterion of class based on property relations, Marx identified the social stratification of the capitalist mode of production with the following social groups: Class consciousness denotes

16800-403: The future not only of India but of Ceylon as well. Their property and assets back home were confiscated. Various other members were arrested. Only Colvin R. de Silva, Leslie Goonewardene, Vivienne Goonewardena and Selina Perera succeeded in evading arrest up to the end. During the war there was a split in the movement. N. M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena opposed a merger into the BLPI and formed

16968-544: The global economy. Certain concepts of Marxian economics, especially those related to capital accumulation and the business cycle , such as creative destruction , have been fitted for use in capitalist systems. Marxist education develops Marx's works and those of the movements he influenced in various ways. In addition to the educational psychology of Lev Vygotsky and the pedagogy of Paulo Freire , Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis' Schooling in Capitalist America

17136-611: The ideas of Karl Marx and Lenin . The original group consisted of Leslie Goonewardene , N.M. Perera , Colvin R. de Silva , Philip Gunawardena and Robert Gunawardena . The LSSP grew out of the Youth Leagues of Ceylon – societies of young people, mainly intellectuals, who wanted independence for the British ruled Sri Lanka – in which a nucleus of Marxists had developed. The party's leaders were predominantly educated returnees from study in London; youth who had come into contact with

17304-544: The ideas of the European Left and were influenced by Harold Laski , an English political theorist and professor at the London School of Economics . Dr S.A. Wickremasinghe , an early returnee and a member of the State Council from 1931, was part of this group. The Youth Leagues campaigned for independence from Britain, notably organising opposition to the so-called 'Ministers' Memorandum', one which in essence called for

17472-534: The late 1940s to 1960s, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party served as the opposition Party in Sri Lanka , whilst being recognised as the Sri Lankan wing of the Fourth International , an organisation characterised by Trotskyism . During this period, the party was able to use its considerable political influence to reform the former British Colony of Ceylon into a socialist republic by nationalising organisations in

17640-416: The late early 1950s, the LSSP took the lead in organising the 1953 Hartal strike, caused by the vast food price inflation under the UNP government. At the time, J.R. Jayawardena was the finance minister of the country. Maintaining the price of rice at 25 cents had been an electoral promise by the UNP in the 1952 elections, and the introduction of the new rate of 70 cents elicited massive public anger. From

17808-550: The latter claiming that Marx himself was a libertarian Marxist. Marxist humanism was born in 1932 with the publication of Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and reached a degree of prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Marxist humanists contend that there is continuity between the early philosophical writings of Marx, in which he develops his theory of alienation , and the structural description of capitalist society found in his later works, such as Capital . They hold that grasping Marx's philosophical foundations

17976-527: The leaders who were in detention. Several high officials were transferred. A new Governor, Sir John Anderson was sent to replace Sir Robert Chalmers with instructions to inquire and report to His Majesty's Government. Newspapers such as The Ceylon Morning Leader played a vital role to mold public opinion. In 1919 the Ceylon National Congress (CNC) was founded to agitate for greater autonomy. It did not seek independence, however, representing

18144-499: The lentils he distributed as dry rations to the people affected in those days. As Sybil described in Forward: The Progressive Weekly many years later: 'Work in connection with malaria relief was an eye-opener to many of these people who were just getting to know the peasant masses. The poverty was incredible, the overcrowding even more so, fifteen, twenty or more people crammed into tiny huts, dying like flies. This

18312-426: The level of class struggle . Under the capitalist mode of production , this struggle materialises between the minority who own the means of production (the bourgeoisie ) and the vast majority of the population who produce goods and services (the proletariat ). Starting with the conjectural premise that social change occurs due to the struggle between different classes within society who contradict one another,

18480-524: The low-country suppressed, the British began planning to capture the Kandyan Kingdom. The 1803 and 1804 invasions of the Kandyan provinces in the 1st Kandyan War were defeated by the Kandyan Sinhalese forces. In 1815, the British fomented a revolt by the Kandyan Sinhalese aristocracy against the last Kandyan monarch and marched into uplands to depose him in the 2nd Kandyan War. The struggle against

18648-570: The material conditions and economic activities required to fulfill human material needs. It assumes that the form of economic organisation, or mode of production , influences all other social phenomena, including broader social relations, political institutions, legal systems, cultural systems, aesthetics and ideologies. These social relations and the economic system form a base and superstructure . As forces of production (i.e. technology ) improve, existing forms of organising production become obsolete and hinder further progress. Karl Marx wrote: "At

18816-529: The misdeeds of the planters and promised scandalous exposures. His delivery, facial appearance, his posture were all very threatening ... Every sentence was punctuated with cries of samy, samy from the labourers. Labourers were heard to remark that Mr. Bracegirdle has correctly said that they should not allow planters to break labour laws and they must in future not take things lying down.' (T. Perera, The Bracegirdle Saga: 60 Years After , 'What Next', No 5 1997.) [7] The British planters were angry that their prestige

18984-524: The names of the LSSP and various of its splinter groups. The Tamil term samadharmam was used to translate 'socialist', but nowadays the English term is used. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was founded on 18 December 1935, with the broad aims of Sri Lankan Independence and Socialism , by a group of young politicians. The group at the foundation numbered a bare half-dozen, and composed principally of students who had returned from study abroad, influenced deeply by

19152-407: The necessities of life. The worker's entry into such employment is voluntary because they choose which capitalist to work for. However, the worker must work or starve. Thus, exploitation is inevitable, and the voluntary nature of a worker participating in a capitalist society is illusory; it is production, not circulation, that causes exploitation. Marx emphasised that capitalism per se does not cheat

19320-496: The new rates were introduced to the public, uproar ensued. This anger was furthered by the suspension of the meals given to schoolchildren and hikes in rail ticket fares and postal fees. Prior to 1953, the concept of a 'Hartal', or general strike , was relatively unknown in Ceylon. Through their exile, the LSSP leaders had witnessed the immense impact of the hartals during the Quit India Movement , ensuring that this knowledge

19488-475: The newly formed United National Party (UNP), which was thus able to form a government under DS Senanayake . The BLPI-affiliated BSP became an independent party in 1948, and was recognised as the Ceylonese section of the Fourth International when the BLPI was dissolved. In 1948, the country was granted Dominion status by the British. The armed forces continued to be commanded by British Officers and

19656-511: The objective laws governing the development of the system of social relations. ... in the second place, the earlier theories did not cover the activities of the masses of the population, whereas historical materialism made it possible for the first time to study with scientific accuracy the social conditions of the life of the masses and the changes in these conditions. — Russian Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin , 1913 Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses

19824-420: The other. He took an active part in organising a public meeting called by the LSSP on Galle Face Green in Colombo on 10 January 1937 to celebrate Sir Herbert Dowbiggin's departure from the island and to protest against the actions of the police during his tenure as Inspector General . In March, he was co-opted to serve on the executive committee. He was employed by Natesa Iyer, Member of the State Council for

19992-454: The outbreak of the Second World War, the party was forced to go underground due to its opposition to the British war effort. The two State Council members of the party and others on its Central committee were arrested and jailed, but Leslie Goonewardene evaded arrest and went underground. On 20 April 1941, a secret conference in Kandy , attended by 42 delegates, was held. Leslie Goonewardene , who

20160-514: The party and formed the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) - the LSSP(R). Later that year, the LSSP joined the coalition government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Three of its MPs became Ministers; Dr N. M. Perera (Finance), Cholomondely Goonewardena (Public Works) and Anil Moonesinghe (Communications). The LSSP was expelled from the Fourth International, and the membership was passed on to

20328-599: The party led a strike wave in May 1941 and strikes in 1942 and 1944. Following the Japanese raid on Colombo on 5 April 1942, the imprisoned leaders escaped and fled to India. In India, the proscribed LSSPers merged their party into the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma (BLPI). Preparatory work had been done in this connection by Leslie Goonewardene , Doric de Souza and Bernard Soysa . The LSSP thus became

20496-729: The party programme: Anil Moonesinghe became Chairman of the Ceylon Transport Board and theoretician Hector Abhayavardhana was made Chairman of the People's Bank and Doric de Souza was appointed permanent secretary to the Ministry of Plantations. Dr Seneka Bibile , a member of the LSSP, became the founder Chairperson of the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC) - which distributed drugs at affordable rates, by generic name instead of by trade name. The SPC, which became

20664-530: The party. Classical Marxism denotes the collection of socio-eco-political theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . As Ernest Mandel remarked, "Marxism is always open, always critical, always self-critical." Classical Marxism distinguishes Marxism as broadly perceived from "what Marx believed." In 1883, Marx wrote to his son-in-law Paul Lafargue and French labour leader Jules Guesde —both of whom claimed to represent Marxist principles—accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and denying

20832-432: The plantations in its lucrative new colony to the south. Through the Indian indenture system , hundreds of thousands of Tamil " coolies " from southern India were transported into Sri Lanka to work on European-owned cash crop plantations. The coffee economy collapsed in the 1870s when coffee blight ravaged the plantations, but the economic system it had created survived intact into the era of its successor, tea, which

21000-595: The platform at that year's May Day rally, and was able to have his deportation order quashed in the courts. Through this incident, Stubbs was isolated. The incident led to the further strengthening of an argument for independence as the Bracegirdle incident had brought almost the entire State Council into opposition to the colonial government. Bracegirdle had been working among the plantation labourers, who were often working in squalid conditions, receiving very little health care, education and living in 'line rooms'. In 1940,

21168-434: The population's living standards due to its need to compensate for the falling rate of profit by cutting employees' wages and social benefits while pursuing military aggression. The socialist mode of production would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through revolution by workers. According to Marxian crisis theory , socialism is not an inevitability but an economic necessity. The term Marxism

21336-539: The pro-Moscow fraction led by S. A. Wickremasinghe, M. G. Mendis , Pieter Keuneman and A. Vaidialingam. The expelled members formed the United Socialist Party (USP) which later evolved into the Communist Party of Ceylon (CPC). With the expulsion of the communists, the LSSP planted itself as an independent Trotskyist party. In its heyday, the LSSP was the Fourth International's most successful component. At

21504-527: The proceedings should be in the vernacular ' and that 'entries in police stations should be recorded in the language in which they are originally stated' were passed by the State Council and referred to the Legal Secretary, but nothing was done about these matters and English continued to be the language of the rule until 1956. Fraternal relations were established between the LSSP and the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) of India and an LSSP delegation attended

21672-440: The proceeds of poppy sales on Armistice Day (11 November) being used for the benefit of the British ex-servicemen to the detriment of Sri Lankan ex-servicemen, one of the latter, Aelian Perera, had started a rival sale of Suriya ( Portia tree ) flowers on this day, the proceeds of which were devoted to helping needy Ceylonese ex-servicemen. In 1933 a British teacher Doreen Young Wickremasinghe , wrote an article, The Battle of

21840-500: The product enslaves first the producer, and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production—on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment." Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving

22008-518: The rest of the country for over a week. But the colonial authorities realised that the independence struggle had become too powerful to ignore. Marxists This is an accepted version of this page Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism , to analyse class relations, social conflict , and social transformation . Marxism originates with

22176-511: The same time injecting more modern secular western ideas into the 'Protestant' Buddhist thought-stream. Sinhala Buddhist Revivalists such as Anagarika Dharmapala started linking 'Protestant' Buddhism to Sinhalese-ness, creating a Sinhala-Buddhist consciousness, linked to the temperance movement . This cut across the old barriers of caste and was the beginning of a pan-Sinhala Buddhist identity. It appealed in particular to small businessmen and yeomen, who now began to take centre stage against

22344-528: The seaport of Penang in Malaya , sinking a Russian cruiser , bombarded Madras and sailed unimpeded down the eastern coast of British Ceylon. Such was its impact that, in Sri Lanka to this day, 'Emden' is the bogeyman that mothers scare their children with, and the term is still used to refer to a particularly obnoxious person. In a panic, the colonial authorities jailed a Boer wildlife official, H. H. Engelbrecht, after accusing him falsely of having supplied meat to

22512-669: The shoes of Dharmapala organised themselves into Youth Leagues , seeking independence and justice for Sri Lanka. The first moves came from the Young Lanka League led by A. E. Gunasinha, C. H. Z. Fernando , EAP Wijerathne and AP Thambayah. In 1924 The Jaffna Students' Congress, later renamed the Jaffna Youth Congress (JYC) was founded. Influenced by the Indian Independence movement, it was secular and committed to Poorana Swaraj (Complete Self-Rule), national unity, and

22680-415: The social classes. The power of one social class to control the means of production enables its exploitation of other classes. Under capitalism, the labour theory of value is the operative concern, whereby the value of a commodity equals the socially necessary labour time required to produce it. Under such conditions, surplus value —the difference between the value produced and the value received by

22848-603: The society) would abolish the exploitative working conditions experienced under capitalism. Through working class revolution, the state (which Marxists saw as a weapon for the subjugation of one class by another) is seized and used to suppress the hitherto ruling class of capitalists and (by implementing a commonly owned, democratically controlled workplace) create the society of communism which Marxists see as true democracy. An economy based on cooperation on human need and social betterment, rather than competition for profit of many independently acting profit seekers, would also be

23016-548: The streets on Armistice Day in competition with the Poppy sellers. The purchasers of the Suriya Mal were generally from the poorer sections of society and the funds collected were not large. But the movement provided a rallying point for the anti-imperialist minded youth of the time. An attempt was made by the British colonial authorities to curb the movement's effectiveness through the 'Street Collection Regulation Ordinance'. Doreen Young

23184-512: The strike wave spread southward towards Uva, and the strikes became more prolonged and the workers began more and more to seek the militant leadership of the Sama samajists. In Uva, Samasamajists including Willie Jayatilleke, Edmund Samarakkody and V. Sittampalam were in the leadership. The plantation-raj got the Badulla Magistrate to issue a ban on meetings. N. M. Perera broke the ban and addressed

23352-629: The strike waves that occurred in the post-war period. In 1946 there was a brief reconciliation between the two factions. At the general election of 1947 the LSSP emerged as the main opposition party, with 10 seats. The BSP obtained 5 seats. They also had the support of the Ceylon Indian Congress (CIC - which later became the Ceylon Workers' Congress ) of Natesa Iyer , which had 6 members in Parliament and of various independent members. However, SWRD Bandaranaike and his Sinhala Maha Sabha backed

23520-476: The struggle and heading it towards power had yet arisen.' Agriculture was the main source of revenue for the country and foreign exchanges. The land in Sri Lanka is very important because it has led to many different wars among different countries. In the 1830s, coffee was introduced into Sri Lanka, a crop which flourishes in high altitudes, and grown on the land taken from the peasants. The principal impetus to this development of capitalist production in Sri Lanka

23688-474: The study of sociology from a Marxist perspective, is "a form of conflict theory associated with ... Marxism's objective of developing a positive ( empirical ) science of capitalist society as part of the mobilisation of a revolutionary working class ." The American Sociological Association has a section dedicated to the issues of Marxist sociology that is "interested in examining how insights from Marxist methodology and Marxist analysis can help explain

23856-412: The sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. Marxism uses a materialist methodology, referred to by Marx and Engels as the materialist conception of history and later better known as historical materialism, to analyse the underlying causes of societal development and change from the perspective of the collective ways in which humans make their living. Marx's account of

24024-599: The theory is in The German Ideology (1845) and the preface A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). All constituent features of a society ( social classes , political pyramid and ideologies ) are assumed to stem from economic activity, forming what is considered the base and superstructure . The base and superstructure metaphor describes the totality of social relations by which humans produce and re-produce their social existence. According to Marx,

24192-646: The turn of the 20th century and led mostly by the educated middle class. It succeeded when, on 4 February 1948, Ceylon was granted independence as the Dominion of Ceylon . Dominion status within the British Commonwealth was retained for the next 24 years until 22 May 1972 when it became a republic and was renamed the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka . The British were dominant in Asia after

24360-484: The value of reformist struggle. From Marx's letter derives Marx's famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, ' ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste ' ('what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist')." Libertarian Marxism emphasises the anti-authoritarian and libertarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, such as left communism , emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism . Libertarian Marxism

24528-538: The various schools of thought , which emphasise or modify elements of classical Marxism , several Marxian concepts have been incorporated into an array of social theories . This has led to widely varying conclusions. Alongside Marx's critique of political economy , the defining characteristics of Marxism have often been described using the terms " dialectical materialism " and "historical materialism", though these terms were coined after Marx's death and their tenets have been challenged by some self-described Marxists. As

24696-432: The worker. Alienation ( German : Entfremdung ) is the estrangement of people from their humanity and a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of production belong to employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others and generate alienated labourers. In Marx's view, alienation is an objective characterisation of the worker's situation in capitalism—his or her self-awareness of this condition

24864-428: The works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought , and as a result, there is no single, definitive " Marxist theory ". Marxism has had a profound effect in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts. In addition to

25032-473: Was a peaceful political movement which was aimed at achieving independence and self-rule for the country of Sri Lanka , then British Ceylon , from the British Empire . The switch of powers was generally known as peaceful transfer of power from the British administration to Ceylon representatives, a phrase that implies considerable continuity with a colonial era that lasted 400 years. It was initiated around

25200-443: Was able to advance parts of its programme considerably: Foreign-owned plantations were nationalised, local ownership was restricted, democratically elected workers' councils were established in state corporations and government departments under the purview of its ministries, and measures were taken that narrowed the gap between the rich and poor. Several LSSP members were appointed to important posts in which they could press forward

25368-605: Was being harmed by a fellow white man. They prevailed upon the British Colonial Governor Sir Reginald Stubbs to deport him. Bracegirdle was served with the order of deportation on 22 April and given 48 hours to leave on the SS Mooltan, on which a passage had been booked for him by the Government. The LSSP with Bracegirdle's assent decided that the order should be defied. Bracegirdle went into hiding and

25536-455: Was brought with them. The Communist Party and VLSSP supported the Hartal and the SLFP and CIC expressed sympathy for the demand of the Hartal, but did not actively support the call for strike. The Ceylon Mercantile Union supported the demands of the strike, but in not take part in it. Rather it encouraged their members to go to work wearing black armbands as a means to protest. The Hartal took

25704-587: Was disgust that Buddhist monks of German origin were interned as ' enemy aliens ' whereas Italian and German Roman Catholic priests were not. Two members of the Governing Party, Junius Richard Jayawardene and Dudley Senanayake , held discussions with the Japanese with a view to collaboration to oust the British. Starting in November 1939 and during the first half of 1940 there was a wave of spontaneous strikes in

25872-586: Was elected the first president of the Suriya Mal movement at a meeting held at the residence of Wilmot Perera in Horana. Terence de Zilva and Robin Ratnam were elected Joint Secretaries, and Roy de Mel Treasurer. There had been a drought in 1934 which caused a shortage of rice, estimated at 3 million bushels. From October on there were floods, followed by a malaria epidemic in 1934–35, during which 1,000,000 people were affected and at least 125,000 died. The Suriya-Mal Movement

26040-456: Was first developed in the Soviet Union in 1929, when a young archaeologist named Vladislav I. Ravdonikas published a report entitled "For a Soviet history of material culture"; within this work, the very discipline of archaeology as it then stood was criticised as being inherently bourgeois, therefore anti-socialist and so, as a part of the academic reforms instituted in the Soviet Union under

26208-416: Was followed by the launching of United Front on 12 August, the tenth anniversary of the 1953 Hartal. The front launched agitations on issues like bring down the prices of essential commodities, leading it to represent an immediate threat to the governance of SLFP. The SLFP began to offer the left parties ministerial posts and worked intensively to break the unity of ULF. The 1950s and 1960s were in many ways

26376-464: Was further enforced by kings/ priest power, and their power increased and carried into the newly settled land. Since the higher caste individuals and those in power were enforcing Buddhism, it eventually became the established religion among the Sihlanese communities. It became very popular among all castes and practiced all over and in different land (areas). There was a practice that was known as Asoka in

26544-479: Was honed by volunteer work among the poor during the Malaria Epidemic of 1934-1935. The volunteers found that there was widespread malnutrition , which they helped fight by making pills of ' Marmite ' yeast extract. In 1936 the LSSP contested the State Council elections in four constituencies and won two of them, Avissawella and Ruanwella . The two new members, Philip Gunawardena and N.M. Perera , worked at

26712-479: Was honed by volunteer work among the poor during the malaria epidemic and the floods. The volunteers found that there was widespread malnutrition , which was aggravated by the shortage of rice, and which reduced resistance to the disease. They helped fight the epidemic by making pills of ' Marmite ' yeast extract. Philip Gunawardena and N. M. Perera came to be known as Avissawelle Pilippuwa (Philip from Avissawella) and Parippuwa Mahathaya ('Mr. Dhal ') because of

26880-412: Was in hiding, attended this conference at which the new programme and constitution were adopted. The cover organisation of the party enabled him to work for a period of one year and three months till he left for India. An openly functioning section of the party was established, led by Robert Gunawardena, S.C.C. Anthonipillai, V. Karalasingham, K.V. Lourenz Perera and William de Silva . The 'open' section of

27048-420: Was introduced on a wide scale from 1880 onwards. Tea was more capital-intensive and needed a higher volume of initial investment to be processed so that individual estate-owners were now supplanted by large English consolidated companies based either in London ('sterling firms') or Colombo ('rupee firms'). Monoculture was thus increasingly capped by monopoly within the plantation economy. The pattern thus created in

27216-584: Was noted for its choice to use a native name rather than an English name, and its members were known as "Samasamajists". The party was the first Marxist party in South Asia . The Sinhala term samasamajaya was one coined by Dally Jayawardena in the Swadesa Mitraya to translate the term ' socialist '. However, the usage of samasamajaya has since been superseded by samajavadaya (which corresponds to similar usage in various Indian languages) in everything but in

27384-447: Was often antagonistic. The BSP accused the LSSP of 'organisational Menshevism '. The LSSP accused the BSP of being introvert doctrinaires. LSSP wanted to build a mass-based party, whereas the BSP concentrated on building a cadre-based ( revolutionary ) party. On 25 October 1945 fist-fights broke out at between the two groups at a meeting of the BSP. The LSSP and the BSP were both at the helm of

27552-693: Was popularised by Karl Kautsky , who considered himself an orthodox Marxist during the dispute between Marx's orthodox and revisionist followers. Kautsky's revisionist rival Eduard Bernstein also later adopted the term. Engels did not support using Marxism to describe either Marx's or his views. He claimed that the term was being abusively used as a rhetorical qualifier by those attempting to cast themselves as genuine followers of Marx while casting others in different terms, such as Lassallians . In 1882, Engels claimed that Marx had criticised self-proclaimed Marxist Paul Lafargue by saying that if Lafargue's views were considered Marxist, then "one thing

27720-492: Was the decline in coffee production in the West Indies , following the abolition of slavery there. However, the dispossessed peasantry was not employed on the plantations: The Kandyan Sinhalese villagers refused to abandon their traditional subsistence holdings and become wage-workers in the harsh conditions that prevailed on these new estates, despite the pressure exerted by the colonial government. The British therefore had to draw on its reserve army of labour in India, to man

27888-489: Was thus able to form a government. The Fourth International was highly critical of the electoral tactics of LSSP, and the LSSP chose not to attend the World Congress of International the following year. In 1962, officers of the Army and Police attempted a coup d'état aimed at overthrowing the government and bringing the UNP to power. This plot was foiled, and the SLFP lurched leftwards in terms of policy. The local branches of petroleum companies were nationalised, leading to

28056-407: Was unrepresented - something that had not happened in the 46 years since the introduction of universal suffrage . The party and its allies received over 8% of the vote, but this was not sufficient to win any seats under the first-past-the-post system then in place in Sri Lanka. The same year the LSSP suffered another split, as a group led by the youth leader Vasudeva Nanayakkara broke away and formed

28224-415: Was what colonial exploitation meant: worse than the worst that prevailed in Britain when Marx and Engels analysed the conditions of the working classes. This was what had to be fought.' [4] The Marxist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), which grew out of the Youth Leagues in 1935, was the first party to demand independence. [5] The first manifesto of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party declared that its aims were

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