The Dominion of Ceylon

Abstract

THE decision of the Soviet Union in December I948 to veto Ceylon's application for membership in the United Nations appears to spring from the fact that, superficially at least, the conversion of a colony into an independent state by peaceful means is inconsistent with MarxLeninism. Lenin in his pamphlet on Imperialism used the material produced by J. A. Hobson in his book of the same name to demonstrate that imperialism was an aspect of and indeed a development of capitalism. To be specific, British capitalism controlled Ceylon as a source of cheap food and raw materials and as a market for manufactured goods. It would not and could not surrender that control because any such surrender would tend to destroy capitalism itself. If it appeared to surrender, that was a mere tactical step designed to make its control more effective and to stave off the revolt of the masses, which must of course come as inevitably in Ceylon as in Britain and the United States. There was no change of substance, but the white capitalists entered into league with the brown capitalists to continue the oppression of the masses. Indirect rule through the brown capitalists was substituted for direct rule by the white capitalists, and the so-called independence was a fake. This thesis was supported by specific references to the Ceylon Constitution, which in these respects does not differ from those of the other Dominions, and to the agreements with the United Kingdom, which vary from the relations between that country and the other Dominions only slightly. Attention was drawn to the formal powers of the Governor-General (which are in fact the same as those of the GovernorGeneral of Canada), to the use by Ceylon of the diplomatic machinery of the United Kingdom wherever it does not choose to establish its own (a practice followed by all of the Dominions), and to the agreements for the defence of the Island (which differ slightly from the arrangements in operation in the other Dominions, partly because they were put into agreements, and partly because Ceylon is strategically in a weak position). No doubt there were also tactical reasons for the Soviet attitude.