Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma

Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma (BLPI) was formed in 1942 as a unification of two Indian groups (the Bolshevik Leninist Party of the United Provinces and Bihar and the Bolshevik Mazdoor Party of India) and Lanka Sama Samaja Party of Ceylon. BLPI became recognized as a section of the Fourth International.

BLPI remained a very small party during world War II, far from the expectations of a massive united revolutionary party for the entire Subcontinent. Most probably no branch ever existed in Burma, the inclusion of Burma in the party name was more of an expression of an intention to expand there. In Ceylon, LSSP had some activities before the war, but the suppression of the party by the colonial authorities and the exile of various leaders to India weakened it severely. Also, the decision to merge LSSP with BLPI was not well established with the primary leaders of the party, who were in British jails. In India, BLPI had activities in a few areas. The majority of the activists were exiled LSSPers who were concentrated in Bombay. BLPI supported the Quit India Movement.

After the war, when the Lankans returned home. But they came back to a divided movement. The main leaders of LSSP, N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena, had been released from jail. They had never agreed on merging LSSP into BLPI, and now they reconstructed LSSP as an independent party. Effectively there were two parallel LSSPs, one led by Perera and Gunawardena and the BLPI-section led by Colvin R de Silva, Leslie Goonawardena and Edmund Samarakkoddy. The English language organ of the BLPI-section was "Fight". There was a brief reconciliation between the two factions in 1946.

The remains of BLPI in India were concentrated in Calcutta, where the party was active in trade union work. In 1948, the Fourth International asked the party to enter the Socialist Party of India and practice entryism there. The Ceylon section of BLPI was converted into the Bolshevik Samasamaja Party, the Ceylon section of the Fourth International.

Leaders and important members

* Philip Gunawardena
* Dr N. M. Perera
* Dr Colvin R. de Silva
* S. C. C. Anthonypillai
* Kamalesh Bannerji
* Onkarnath Shastri
* Chandravadan Shukla
* Raj Narayan Arya
* Leslie Goonewardena
* Vivienne Goonewardena
* Kusuma Gunawardena
* Edmund Samarakkody
* Bernard Soyza
* Hector Abhayavardhana
* Vinayak Purohit

External links

* [http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol12/no10/blpi.htm Resolution on Pakistan (December 1946)]
* [http://www.anti-caste.org/marxists/trotskyist_press.html Trotskyist Press on India/Sri Lanka 1939-1951] from the [http://www.anti-caste.org Anti-Caste Information Page]