 Meanwhile, the Marxists, identifying the war as an imperialist sideshow and desiring a proletarian revolution, chose a path of agitation disproportionate to their negligible combat strength, and diametrically opposed to the "constitutionalist" approach of Senanayake and other Ethnic Sinhalese leaders.A small garrison on the Cocos Islands, manned by Ceylonese, attempted to expel the British.It has been claimed that the LSSP had some hand in the action, though this is far from clear.