Grenada: A big revolution in a small country
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T most 8000 U.S. Rangers invaded the Thirty years ago, on Oct. 25, 1983, al tiny Caribbean island of Grenada to make doubly sure that the revolution of March 13, 1979, four and a half years earlier, would not rise again. This vital and exemplary revo lution in a Black, English-speaking country of 100,000 nevertheless posed a serious threat to U.S. imperialism. This was not because of the size or military power of this tiny nation that measured some 21 by 11 miles but because of the politics and socialist orientation of its leadership.
In truth, however, the revolution had ended in blood a week earlier. At that time, a Stalinist “leader” of Grenada’s governing party, the New Jewel Movement (NJM), and its People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG), Bernard Coard, ordered a handful of Grenadi an soldiers led by Hudson Austin to gun down Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, several other members of Grenada’s central leadership, and some dozen sup porters who were part of a demonstration of tens of thousands demanding Coard’s removal.
The subtitle of this article, “A 30-year personal ret rospective,” is included because by a combination of circumstances I had become intimately familiar, as a sometimes close observer to be sure, with the events surrounding the revolution’s internal disputes and tragic demise.
Within days of the impending U.S. invasion, and after initiating a San Francisco demonstration of 5000 to warn against it, I resigned from the then most influ ential and largest Trotskyist party in the U.S., the So cialist Workers Party, where my political loyalties had resided for almost two decades. The SWP’s break from its revolutionary heritage had begun several years earlier, compelling me along with several hundred other comrades to form a short-lived internal oppo sition. However, we were denied a fundamental right that, since its formation a half-century earlier, had been central to the SWP’s traditions and rich demo cratic history—the right to present contending ideas to the ranks for thorough discussion, debate, and deci sion. By 1983 at least half of this opposition of some 200 comrades, including several of the SWP’s found ing members, has been bureaucratically expelled.
The SWP’s initial stance on the murder of Maurice Bishop was kept from the membership by the party’s uncertain leadership. A week after Bishop’s murder, when Cuban President Fidel Castro denounced Bish op’s murder and skewed Bernard Coard as a Stalin ist betrayer, the SWP reversed course and eventually published a long tract, joining in Castro’s powerful re pudiation. But the SWP’s actions before Castro spoke 6 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 2013 retrospective (Left) Invading U.S. Marines arrest Grenada’s defenders in October 1983.
New Dawn,” which included a call to action, stating, “I am now calling upon the working people, the youth, workers, farmers, fishermen, middle-class people, and women to join our armed revolutionary forces at central positions in your communities and to give them any as sistance which they may call for.”
The call was initially disregarded by Grena da’s cautious populace for fear that it might be the work of dictator Gairy, seeking to entice un wary Bishop supporters into the streets where they would be met with arrest, if not execution. It was not until the inspired NJM leaders played Bob Marley’s revolutionary music, banned un der Gairy, that the masses realized that, indeed, this was to be a “bright new dawn” for the Gre nadian people.
Bishop’s followers, perhaps 200 activists at most but accompanied by massive community support across the island, successfully seized control of all local police stations. Bishop’s ad dress to the nation explained a truth that few doubted. “The criminal dictator, Eric Gairy,” he stated, “apparently sensing that the end was near, yesterday fled the country, leaving orders for all opposition forces, including especially the peoples’ leaders, to be massacred. “Before these orders could be followed, the Peoples’ Revolutionary Army was able to seize power. The people’s government will now be seeking Gairy’s extradition so that he may be put on trial to face charges, including the gross charges, the serious charges, of murder, fraud and the trampling of the democratic rights of our people.”
Bishop’s statement made clear the revolution’s ob jectives: “People of Grenada, this revolution is for work, for food, for decent housing and health servic es, and for a bright future for our children and great grand-children.
“The benefits of the revolution will be given to every one regardless of political opinion or which political party they support.
“Let us all unite as one. All police stations are again reminded to surrender their arms to the people’s rev olutionary forces.”
“Maurice’s boys,” as they were popularly called, in consort with the Grenadian people, had indeed, tak en power. With but a handful of deaths, Grenada was deemed “the peaceful revolution” by its friends every where.
The newly-founded People’s Revolutionary Gov ernment (PRG) soon afterwards sought financial aid from the U.S. and other capitalist nations to meet its promises to the Grenadian people. Aid was denied by the Carter and Reagan administrations, who, seeking to isolate this poor former English colony of Black slaves, pressed other countries to follow suit. The call of Black Power that began in the U.S. had swept the Caribbean and around the world. In Grenada, revolu tionary Blacks had achieved power and set out to be an example to the world of what could be achieved by oppressed people, even in an isolated poor nation, un der constant threat and virtually embargoed by U.S. imperialism.
A Nov. 19, 1979, Nation magazine interview with Bishop made the new government’s intentions and political origins clear. Said Bishop, “We have always stressed, underlined and emphasized that we are so cialist and manifestly so. What we have also said is that the way in which people should define what we mean by socialism is to look at our manifesto, study our programmes and policies [over the past] six and a half years, see what struggles we have defended, see whose interests we have fought for, and from that you can tell see what we are.”
With the solidarity and support of revolutionary-minded volunteers from many nations, and especially from Cuba, which several PRG leaders had visited, Grenadians set out to be an example to the world. This was at a time when capitalist economies were stag nant, and the conditions of working people, and op pressed nationalities especially, were under siege.