The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people are a liberated lot when it comes to the principles of Patriotism and Internationalism. Some people in the world are patriotic, but not internationalists; whereas the Chinese communists are both Patriotic and Internationalist, like the way all other communists should be.
I must emphasise this principle in order to explain to my readers the historic event that will take place today at 4:30 p.m. at the Temple Trees, Colombo, with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena as the Chief Guest and the Chinese Ambassador as the Guest of Honour. This is because, some 73 years ago, a small group of people organised a ‘Ceylon-China Friendship Union’, which later became the now well-known Sri Lanka-China Friendship Association.
That was the day when a few Sri Lankan leftists sat around a table at the residence of Madam Theja Gunawardhana, a well-known writer and also a fellow traveller of Communism, at No: 224, Temple Road, Colombo 10, to inaugurate a small but meaningful organisation, just a few months after the victory of the Chinese Revolution on 1st October 1949.
Legacy of friendship
That was exactly 73 years ago on a day like today, September 21, 1950. They were led by the Ceylon Communist Party and their close alliance was with another left-oriented nationalist group, Viplawakari Lanka Samasamaja Party led by Phillip and Kusuma Gunawardena, M.P. for Awissawella.
Hence, they inaugurated the said small group called, ‘Ceylon-China Friendship Union’ with Kusuma Gunawardena as the first President. Two years after it was renamed as the Sri Lanka-China Friendship Association (SLCFA). Today, 73 years later, that Kusuma Gunawardena’s son, Dinesh Gunawardena, is the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka-China Friendship Association will commemorate the historical event with the Prime Minister as the Chief Guest and the Ambassador of China as the Guest of Honour, at the late leader Kusuma Gunawardena’s son’s official residence, the Temple Trees!
That small group of friends of China, during those early days, read, and studied Mao Zedong and other Chinese theoreticians like Liu Shaoqi to respect Chinese Communism and to defend and follow the political thinking of the Communist Party of China.
Expounding on his theory of ‘Patriotism and Internationalism’, the greatest leader who emerged from the ranks of the Chinese nation, Comrade Mao Zedong, has said, ‘By the year 2001, at the beginning of next century, China will have undergone even greater changes. As should be, China, with a land with an area of 96,000,000 square kilometres, and a population of 600 million …., but for a long time in the past China’s contribution to the world was too small. For this we are regretful. However, we should be modest, not only now but even forty-five years from now and indeed always, Chinese people should rid themselves of great nation chauvinism resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely.’
Early history
Internationalism is a principle for thought and practice for friendship with China, and Chinese friendship with the people of the world derives from this and this principle alone.
When this earliest China-friendly group was inaugurated in 1950, by the year 1948 Kusuma was a loner in Parliament and later her Party was separated and split away from the Lanka Samasamaja Party in June 1950. Kusuma’s Party, the VLSSP, came closer to the Ceylon Communist Party. Kusuma was a live wire with strong nationalist principles, exactly like the staunch leftist her much-talked-about husband Phillip was. The Ceylon Communist Party always stood by her and Pieter Keuneman, the journalist, Communist and Editor of CCP weekly ‘Forward’ called her once ‘the Red Flame of the House!’
On May Day 1948, the Ceylon Communist Party launched a daily Sinhala paper called, ‘COMMUNIST’ for Colombo workers, students and intellectuals. By that time in China the Red Army was on the march, capturing a city after city, and the ‘COMMUNIST’ paper was very popular like hotcakes, because it was the only left paper that carried the latest from China. By September 1949 they had liberated the great city of Beijing and called up the National United Front Legislature named to this day as ‘The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference’ (CPPCC).
This legislature was called in order to decide upon the National Chairman, the National Prime Minister, the National Flag, the National Anthem, the National Capital, the name of the Nation among other sovereign nations of the world, and the day to set all those together at the proclamation of the National Day of the People’s Republic of China as the First of October 1949.
Hence, the day of the calling up of the CPPCC was just eleven days prior to the proclamation of China’s Liberation and it was historically established on September 21, 1949!
Manifestation of proletariat internationalism
The Ceylon Communist Party and the VLSSP were very smart to organize the small but powerfully represented, ‘’The Ceylon – China Friendship Union’’ on September 21, 1950, with left-oriented nationalist leader Kusuma Gunawardena M.P. as the first Chairperson, exactly one year after the CPC called up and established the CPPCC in Beijing on 21st September 1949, with Chairman Mao Zedong as the head of the new Nation.
The basis of this Sri Lankan organization was the principle that derives from Patriotism and Internationalism from the Communist Party of China. Former Chinese President Liu Shaoqi wrote his Thesis of ‘’Nationalism and Internationalism’’ which later became the Abidharma or the Gospel of all Marxist Leninists of the whole wide world.
The reason was Chairman Mao Zedong and President Liu Shaoqi made the concrete foundation of friendship for all people to practice the much talked out People to People Friendship! Many talked, many others marketed, and some have even made it their livelihood BUT many forget the fact that the Marxist Leninist Principle of Proletariat Internationalism is the only basis for the friendship between two free and independent peoples or two or more sovereign nations.
Mao Zedong’s lengthy explanation of the numerical power, large mileage, strong economy or military might never ever be the criteria to explain Chinese friendship!
That is because slaves are not friends, servants are not friends, commission agents and all other agents are not friends, but only independent people with liberated minds can become mutual friends. Being big and small is immaterial as long as people and organizations are principally mutual in friendship and it derives from the ‘’Spirit of Internationalism’’ and no other financial spirit or numeric strength at all.
Leadership evolution
After Kusuma Gunawardena stepped down, Theja Gunawardhana was elected to lead the Sri Lanka–China Friendship Association. After the first Ambassador of Sri Lanka to China, Mr. Wilmot A. Perera returned home, he was elected to be the third President. Former Sri Lankan representative to the UNO, former principal of Ananda College, Senator and Minister of Justice A. B. Perera Q.C. was the next President, followed by the former Ambassador to Malaysia Dr. KLV Alagiyawanna elected as the fifth President. The sixth was former Supreme Court Judge, Justice SW Walpita. Late Ratne Deshapriya Senanayake Ambassador to Indonesia was the seventh President of the SLCFA and I was elected as the eighth President in May 1995.
The strong internationalist principles of the Communist Party of China were the inspiration for the people of the world to stand up with China in a world dominated by imperialists, hegemonists and expansionist sub super powers. I will conclude this article by quoting what Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said when he addressed the UNO as the very first leading Chinese Communist to address the august world body.
On April 10, 1974, Deng Xiaoping had these words to paint out the correct Chinese Communist principle.
“If one day China should change her colour and turn into a superpower if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.”
(Ananda Goonatilleke is an Attorney-at-Law and President of the Sri Lanka – China Friendship Association)
Ananda Goonatilleke