THE HISTORIC '1971 APRIL UPRISE' IS A LANDMARK OF SRI LANKAN REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE. HERE ARE SOME RELATED WEB PUBLICATIONS ON THE '71April struggle
THE CEYLONESE INSURRECTION, the article you are to read was published in EXPLOSION IN A SUBCONTINENT, Robin Blackburn's famous evaluation on the revolutionary movements of South Asian region.INTRODUCTION
"...The dramatic events of 1971 threw into sharp relief the underlying crisis of the social order that dominates all four sub continental states.
The savage repression of the revolt by peasants and youth in April 1971 brought into view the acute contradictions of Mrs. Bandaranaike's Ceylon - notably its inability to sustain a social democratic Asian welfare state in a context still dominated by imperialism and capitalism. That Mrs. Bandaranaike's govt was forced to rely on lavish assistance from nearly every major power, and internally on slaughter and imprisonment on a mass scale, so soon after a sweeping electoral victory, underscored its extremely precarious position. Fred Halliday explores the causes and consequences of the revolt in a broad survey of the recent economic and political development of Ceylon....
There is, of course, every reason for revolutionaries in the subcontinent to use to the full of remaining opportunities for legal organization and agitation, to encourage unionization and the development of class struggle tendencies within the unions, and to propagate the need for socialist revolution in elections. But the spirit that will be needed to challenge successfully the structures of oppression and exploitation on the subcontinent is that to be found in the eloquent Defence Speech (OUR VOICE WILL LAST FOREVER) by Rohana Wijeweera. Revolutionary intransigence of this sort, wedded to the struggles and aspirations of the masses, can alone break the arrogant and arbitrary power of the new Raj. The clash in Ceylon in 1971 came before the JVP had established a revolutionary democracy based on peasants' and workers' committees. It seems likely that the new generation of revolutionaries emerging in the subcontinent, of whom Wijeweera is a leading representative, will be better prepared next time. "
( INTRODUCTION BY ROBIN BLACKBURN )- EXPLOSION IN A SUBCONTINENT
FOUNDER LEADER OF JVP, COMRADE ROHANA WIJEWEERA'S STATEMENT AT THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE COMMISSION
OUR VOICE WILL LAST FOREVER
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