Blackwell Reference Online

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Don Philip Rupasinghe Gunawardena is considered the first leader of socialism in Sri Lanka. Born in rural Boralugoda, then in colonial Ceylon, Philip Gunawardena was the son of a prominent landowner and Sinhalese patriot, Don Jacolis Rupasinghe Gunawardena. While studying at the University of Illinois-Urbana and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he became a socialist through his friendship with fellow student Jayaprakash Narayan , who would later form the Congress Socialist Party in India. Gunawardena graduated from Colombia University in New York City with a doctorate in agricultural economics. Here he joined the communist-led League Against Imperialism (LAI) in 1925. In 1928 Gunawardena went to London, joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), and was assigned to work in the LAI and the India League, where he met and recruited youth from the various British colonies, including the handful of very talented intellectuals who later would help him form the Lanka Sama Samaja Party . As a courier to the Communist International's headquarters in Berlin, he witnessed the disastrous impact of Stalin's ultra-left line. Gunawardena became a secret Trotskyist. As Ervin (2006) has documented, he even made an attempt to visit Trotsky , who was then living in exile on the Turkish island of Prinkipo after his expulsion from the USSR. In 1932 Gunawardena was also expelled by ... log in or subscribe to read full text