workingclasshistory:

On this day, 5 April 1971, a communist uprising began in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) against the “anti-imperialist” government when militants attacked police stations across the country. The insurgents were mostly young people organised by the People’s Liberation Front (JVP), which describes itself as Marxist-Leninist.
They had previously supported the United Front (UF) government which included the Communist Party and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), who supported the ideology of Russian Bolshevik Leon Trotsky. The election of the UF had been greeted with with much joy across the international left, which considered it a victory for “anti-imperialism.”
JVP forces initially took control of several towns and rural areas. But then an unlikely-sounding coalition emerged to suppress it. Ceylon government forces were given support, troops and weaponry by the UK, the former colonial power, the US, Australia, Egypt, India and Pakistan as well as China, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
By June the rebellion had been suppressed, leaving an estimated 1-5,000 dead.
While calling themselves communist, the JVP, the CP and the LSSP were all majority Sinhala organisations which espoused forms of nationalism, and all engaged in racism and ethnic cleansing against the minority Tamil population. Especially in more recent years the JVP became much more openly and virulently racist against Tamils, and in the early 2000s became the primary force opposing the peace process between the government and Tamil rebels, which prolonged the deadly civil war.
Learn more in this informative pamphlet by the Solidarity group about the insurrection and its background: https://libcom.org/history/ceylon-jvp-uprising-april-1971 https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1687558704762606/?type=3