4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST nated between those led by Dudley Senanayake and Sirimavo Bandara-naike. In 1964 the LSSP, which had hitherto characterized the SLFP as the 'alternate party of the capitalist class,3 joined a coalition government with the SLFP and were given three ministries. This led to the expulsion of the party from the Fourth International and a split away from the party led by Bala Tampoe, trade union leader of the mercantile workers and Edmund Samarakkody, an LSSP veteran who subsequently led yet another split. In 1970 the three-party coalition won a landslide victory, Mrs Bandaranaike's SLFP winning 90 seats, the LSSP 19 and the CP 6. Three LSSP ministers are in the cabinet: NM Perera, in charge of the Finance portfolio, Colin R de Silva, for Plantations and Constitutional Affairs and Leslie Goonewardena for Transport and Communications. These three are founder-members of the LSSP. The Communist Party has the Ministry of Housing, held by Pieter Keuneman. Ideological differences in the world Communist movement had given rise to a split in the Communist Party and to the formation of a 'Peking wing' party under N Sanmugathasan. In 1973, the United Front government expelled the CP led by S A Wickremasinghe (also a founder-member of the LSSP) on the ground of its criticisms of the government. The CP in its turn expelled Keuneman and several others who have formed a new Communist Party. In order to assess the present political situation in Sri Lanka in relation to the left movement and the participation in a coalition government of the LSSP and a section of the CP, a study of the early history is important. Nationalist and Labour Agitation The development of plantation capitalism in Sri Lanka gave rise to important changes in the class composition and the political superstructure of the country. With this change in the mode of production and the consequent rise of the new classes, the bourgeoisie and the working class, two distinct forms of agitation for political and democratic rights emerged. These were the movement for political reform associated with the development of nationalism, and the labour movement which encompassed strikes, agitation and the formation of trade unions by the working class. To understand the circumstances under which the first leftist party was formed in Ceylon in 1935, a brief account of the growth of capitalism and the beginnings of labour unrest is necessary. Capitalism in Ceylon was based exclusively on plantations and economic activity subservient to that sector. In the period between the 1820s and the 1880s, when coffee was the main export crop, the form of organization in the plantation sector was private proprietorship by British capitalists. In the 1880s in Europe, new forms of capitalist organization emerged and the period was characterized by the growth of monopolies, the export of capital and the new wave of imperialism. In Ceylon from 1886 onwards, the impact of these changes was felt when private ownership