Anil Moonesinghe (15 February 1927 – 8 December 2002) was a Sri Lankan Trotskyist revolutionary politician and trade unionist.

A member of the family of Anagarika Dharmapala, who named him 'Anil Kumar', he was raised with Buddhist and Sinhalese nationalist values, as well as a strong opposition to the colonial power, Britain.

He attended Royal College, Colombo, an elite institution known for producing many radicals, civil servants and bourgeois politicians, where he excelled in athletics and earned his colors.

During the Second World War, he organized a group of boys to aid the Japanese in the event of a landing on the island, earning himself the nickname 'Rommel' at school.

Alongside Osmund Jayaratne and Dicky Attygala, he formed a communist group at Royal College, which eventually adopted a Trotskyist stance.

When news of Churchill's defeat in the general election reached the ship, all the soldiers on board cheered and threw their caps in the air, which greatly encouraged him.

It was during this time that he met his future wife, Jeanne Hoban, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) whom he influenced towards Trotskyism.

They joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), where they were affiliated with the faction led by Tony Cliff, known as the 'State-Caps' due to their characterization of the USSR as 'State-Capitalist'.

He married Jeanne Hoban in 1948, and together they moved into a houseboat named 'Red October' that they constructed themselves, located on the Thames near Marlow.

They were both connected with the MP for Slough, Fenner Brockway, and with George Padmore, the prophet of Black African Liberation.

During his tenure, he worked diligently for his constituency, constructing roads and schools through self-help initiatives and advocating for the welfare of the poorest sections, particularly the neglected lower castes.

Together with Jeanne, he joined Sri Lanka's first co-operative housing scheme, the Gothatuwa Building Society.

He was elected to the Central Committee of the LSSP and then onto its Political Bureau (Politburo), a position he never lost until he left the party.

At the 1964 LSSP conference, he was aligned with Dr N.M. Perera on the question of whether or not to enter the Coalition Government of Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

He succeeded Dr N.M. Perera as president of the redoubtable All Ceylon United Motor Workers' Union (ACUMWU).

At the 1970 general election, the UCMU also sponsored the candidature of novice Mahinda Rajapakse, who was the chairman of its Vidyodaya University branch and who was later to become Prime Minister and then President of Sri Lanka.

Senior citizens still nostalgically refer to the CTB under Moonesinghe, which provided an efficient and disciplined service to the public.

[4] He would dress in a bush shirt and trousers and operate as a one-man flying squad to catch errant bus crews in the act, lying in wait in his metallic blue Volkswagen Variant or his Citroën 2CV at places like Dematagoda Junction to prowl on them.

The local modification of ticket machines was started after employees pointed out many unsuitable features, and a new workshop was acquired for this.

He also created 'CANTAB', a secret intelligence organisation, the agents of whom were employees of the CTB, which provided accurate reports of the strength and distribution of JVP units.

In 1975, Leslie Gunawardena and he were preparing the ground for a major shift in the management of the CTB, whereby Employees' Council representatives were to form half the board of directors.

During the 'White Terror' of 1988–90, he was active in saving hundreds of suspects from summary execution – at one point having to threaten an Army commandant with attack.

In the early 1990s he was elected a vice-president of the SLFP and was part of a re-organisation drive led by Anura Bandaranaike, DM Jayaratne, Berty Premalal Dissanayake and Mahinda Rajapakse.

He had a close relationship with Václav Havel, the president of the Czech Republic, due to his connections with the oppositional movement in Czechoslovakia since the Prague Spring.