that it was not the Old Left but the SLFP which benefited from the hartal in the form of the popular upsurge of 1956 which felled the UNP and brought S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike to power as prime minister. While those who later broke away from the LSSP have all complained in varying degrees of the LSSP's failure to mobilize after the hartal for a bigger onslaught against the state, the party's official historian Leslie Goonewardene offers this explanation: "Most important of all, it was the considered view of the LSSP (as well as we believe of the VLSSP-CP United Front) that the mass movement had reached only a stage of protest against the actions of the Government in imposing the burdens it did on the masses, and not at a stage where it was aiming at the overthrow of the Government". Dr. Colvin R. de Silva had identified 1953 Hartal as a class struggle. The long-term effect was for politicians in Ceylon, and then Sri Lanka, to recognize that the laboring classes had power, and that in turn increased the coercive effect and hence political power of trade unions. Nearly two decades later, a leftist youth armed revolt took a SLFP government led by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's widow Sirima Bandaranaike, who had leftist parties in its cabinet. Ironically Bandaranaike received aid from the west and the Soviet Union to crush the insurrection with brutal force. Notes References General External links The 1971 Ceylonese Insurrection - Fred Halliday Hartal! - Colvin R de Silva 1953 in Ceylon 1953 protests 1953 riots Economic history of Sri Lanka Labour in Sri Lanka Protests in Sri Lanka Rebellions in Sri Lanka Riots and civil disorder in Sri Lanka General strikes in Asia