Sugiswara Abeywardena Wikremasinghe

Born Apr. 13, 1901, in the hamlet of Aturalia, in the Matara region. Figure in the international and Ceylonese workers’ movement. Physician by profession.

Wikremasinghe began to participate in the national liberation movement of Ceylon in 1920. In 1934 he was one of the organizers of the national party Lanka Sama Samaja. He was in England from 1936 to 1938, where he was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He returned to Ceylon in 1938. In 1943 he took an active part in the establishment of the Communist Party of Ceylon. He was chairman of its Central Committee until 1950, its general secretary from 1950 to 1955, and chairman of the Central Committee again in 1955. In 1972, when the post of party chairman of the Central Committee was abolished at the Eighth Congress, Wikremasinghe became general secretary of the Sri Lanka Communist Party. From 1945 to 1950 he was chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ceylon. From 1949 to 1953 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the World Federation of Trade Unions.