CEYLON: From Trotsky to Groucho

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Marxist dialectics reached interesting heights of confusion last week in the election of a deputy mayor of Colombo (pop. 355,000), capital of the island nation of Ceylon.

Colombo's city council, which elects the mayor and deputy mayor, has four major parties: United Nationalists (conservative), Communists, and two brands of Trotskyites. For deputy mayor, the Communists had to choose between a Trotskyite and an independent with Nationalist support.

They plumped for the Trotskyite and their three votes elected him.

This decision was a grave ideological error. Within hours, they were denounced by Ceylon's Communist central committee and suspended from the party.

The three erring Communists knew just what to do. They immediately issued a standard confession, admitting their error and endorsing their own censure. This reversal reminded the Ceylon Daily News of another Marxian "crisis" wherein Groucho, feeling the pulse of an unconscious woman, looks up at his audience and says, "Either this woman is dead or my watch has stopped."