Three years after:
the lessons of Grenada
If the invasion of Grenada has not been forgotten after three years, the exact circumstances surrounding Maurice Bishop's death certainly have. As time recedes, certain anti-imperialist figures are tending to blame the entire Central Committee (CC) of the New Jewel Movement (NJM), from Maurice Bishop to Bernard Coard, for 'having been precipitated into a fratricidal struggle whose consequences they were incapable of foreseeing'.'
Basing themselves on this sentiment, the circles linked to Coard and his friends of the Workers Party of Jamaica explain that Bishop bears an overwhelming responsibility. And now that Coard and thirteen others have been condemned to death during an unfair trial that ended in Grenada in December 1986, they believe that protests against the verdict will be more powerful if they are accompanied by propaganda aimed at discrediting Bishop. The arguments they use are not new. They were put forward at length as early as January 1984 by Richard Hart in his introduction to a collection of speeches by Bishop. 3 The following article tries to answer this text and to draw some lessons from the collapse of the Grenadian revolution. A treacherous political attack Richard Hart's introduction is put forward as a eulogy to Maurice Bishop. It is in fact a treacherous political attack. Hart would like us to believe that he adopts a neutral stance regarding the NJM's internal conflict. In reality he espouses closely the arguments of the Coardists and their mentors from the Workers Party of Jamaica led by Trevor Munroe.
58 International Marxist Review
Hart's thesis can be summed up as follows: —recognising his own weaknesses, Maurice Bishop, after a plenary session of the NJM, accepts the establishment of a joint Bishop-Coard leadership, as had been decided at a CC meeting; — for whatever reason, Bishop questions this decision upon his return from abroad. Having determined that the CC would refuse to re-open the debate, he decides to go over the heads of the party leadership like Mao-Tse Tung during the Cultural Revolution'. He does this in the most pernicious way possible: he starts a rumor that his political adversaries want to assassinate him; —Bishop's behaviour infuriates NJM members. Not being able to overcome their bad feelings, the CC members behave rashly. Instead of seeking a solution that could be acceptable to Bishop, they maintain a rigid attitude; - Bishop is put under house-arrest. This fires the discontent of the masses. Confronted with this situation, the CC proposes a compromise to Bishop. But before he can respond, a demonstration, led by NJM leader Unison Whiteman, frees him. This leads to Bishop's death under extremely hazy circumstances.
According to Hart, who pretends not to be biased either way, all the leaders showed a remarkable lack of maturity, which led to the destruction of the party and the invasion of the country. This infernal chain of events could have been broken if the CC had been prudent, he explains. But according to his thesis, Bishop clearly carries enormous responsibility, for not only had he decided to break party discipline, but also to 'defy and if necessaded destroye her mind, Harta dis that if Bishop had prevailed and had 'established personal control', the Grenadian revolution would have lost its 'working class socialist orientation'
Today, certain Coardists have the same theory. They realise that it was a mistake to put Bishop under house-arrest. It was not wrong in principle, they explain, but it did not take into account the relationship between Bishop and the masses. Moreover, they say, the main point is to understand that it was Bishop's behaviour that provoked the crisis and brought about the destruction of the revolution. A real revolution On March 13, 1979, 46 members of the New Jewel Movement destroyed the True Blue Barracks and seized the radio station. Maurice Bishop called upon the Grenadians to gather on the village squares and lend a strong hand to the revolutionary forces. Thousands of men, women and children responded to this call. They encircled the police stations, made their own arrests and organised patrols. The enthusiasm was immense that day and the days following.
Youth queued up to enlist in the new 'People's Revolutionary Army'.
It was going to replace the army of the dictator Gairy, which had been dismantled in a half hour on March 30. On March 18, a new government was proclaimed in front of a meeting of 25,000. The declaration of the
Grenadian revolution and the first popular laws were presented and
It was thus truly a revolution, and not a coup d'etat, as is often claimed.
If not, could the revolutionaries have achieved the surrender of the police forces, more numerous than they, confined in an 18th century fort defending the capital St. George's? Only a small minority of the population, however, participated actively. The insurrection took the masses by surprise. The situation had been far from calm during the preceding weeks. The Barclay's
Bank strike had escalated the tension in the capital. But contrary to what has happened in other modern revolutions, the insurrection was not preceded by a prolonged period of struggle and a deep crisis, during which the consciousness of large layers was transformed, and organs of mobilization developed. And if the enthusiasm was great on March 13, the activity of the masses was nevertheless very limited. It must also be said that the leaders of the revolution did not seek to encourage structures where the most conscious of the population could get involved in a militant manner. Perhaps
Afterwards, the NJM was not sparing in its efforts to develop all sorts of mass organisations, including popular militias. Between March and
October 1979, unionization rose from 30 per cent to more than 80 per cent.
People's Assemblies, which at first only grouped sympathisers of the NJM, were opened up to all in 1981 except it seems 'bourgeois elements' were then very successful. The government then implemented the plans outlined in the 1973 NJM Manifesto. This remarkable text contains the
Since politics deals with the making of decisions, and since politics is largely the process which decides who gets what, where, how and when, New Jewel does not consider it to be the function of an 'exclusive club'. NJM stands solidly behind People's Assemblies as the new form of government that will be assured of both their political and their economic
Nevertheless, NJM does not expect that People's Assemblies will be able to take over right away. It will take time to get these Assemblies really going. We therefore hold that when power changes hands in the near future, there will have to be a provisional government, an in-between government. That government will be dedicated to the task of developing
People's Assemblies, among other things. It will have the task of starting, promoting,
The majority of the population took to the new structure of democracy, still at the embryonic stages, which was set up conforming to the 1973
Manifesto-Parish Councils and Workers Councils. But only a minority actively participated in them. There are many reasons for this. The most important is that despite all the energy put into education, the politicization of the Grenadians progressed slowly, at least in countryside. Moreover, the population being dispersed in the villages was obviously an obstacle
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 59 acclaimed during another meeting on March 25. they wasted a good opportunity. following:
rights. To us, People's Assemblies will bring in true democracy.
encouraging and generally bringing into being the Assemblies. 4
'. They
60 International Marxist Review to the organisation of evening meetings. All the more so, as Grenadians were constantly urged to participate in all sorts of activities: community work, military training, meetings of women's groups, literacy courses, popular education, etc. The monthly meetings of the People's Assemblies were not always well-organized for lack of cadres, nor were they very useful. They allowed the population to meet officials of the state and public services, to ask them for an accounting, to put pressure on them, to take part in discussions on certain laws, especially on the budget. Essentially they played an informational and politicizing role. But they hardly had any power, even on local issues, other than to make proposals. This was especially the case with certain 'sensitive' issues which were often problematic, such as foreign policy or the repressive measures carried out against accused counter-revolutionaries. These were not up for debate.
Other forums for discussion existed. These were the mass organizations. In 1982 and 1983, a thousand delegates from trade unions, women's organizations, youth, peasants, as well as the army met for a whole day to discuss the national budget plans and the objectives set for the state sector. These proposals were then submitted for discussion to the People's Assemblies before the government did the final draft of the text. By contrast, there was no body similar to the State Council of Nicaragua, where representatives of mass organizations would have been permanently entitled to voice their opinions. And the government itself was not autonomous from the NJM.
Efforts were undertaken to permit greater participation of the population in discussions of the assemblies. The zones of the country covered by each assembly were sub-divided into smaller and smaller units. The goal was one assembly per every one or two villages. The debates in the plenary assembly combined with workshop discussions. The structures also had to be set up very early to attend to the organization of local life, the militia, communal work, the economy, the distribution of milk, and popular education. The problem of democracy It was still an experimental system. According to NJM leaders it had a long way to go in its development. Accordingly they did not wish to formulate it too rapidly. However, in 1983 they decided that it was time to draft a constitution. In the summer of 1983 they named the first members of commission responsible for elaborating a plan over two years. Consultation of the population was to begin in November 1983. After having been amended by the population, this plan would have been submitted to a referendum within about two years. There would have been a rich debate. What, then, would have been the role of the NJM in this new political system? Would there have been room for other political parties? Could groups of citizens who disagreed with the draft constitution have campaigned
Three vears after: the lessons of Grenada 61 for a 'no' vote, or indeed proposed an alternative text?
In June 1983, Maurice Bishop declared in New York:
This constitution is not really going to look like the one that the Queen gave us in 1974
(...) This time around, the constitution is going to come out of the bowels of our people and out of our earth. Our people will have their input and will decide what they want to see in that constitution. This time around, the constitution will not just entrench empty rights, but will entrench rights and also provide remedies for enforcement of those rights
(...) Our new constitution also is certainly going to institutionalise and entrench the system of popular democracy which we have been building over these past four years in our country.
Apart from the usual national elections, which will of course be there too, we are going to ensure that these embryonic organs of popular democracy continue to have a place.
Because to us, democracy is much, much more than just an election. To us, democracy is a great deal more than just the right to put an 'X' next to Tweedledum or Tweedledee every five years.5 According to Minister for National Mobilisation Selwyn Strachan, the plan was eventually to replace the government by a National Assembly, elected by the District Assemblies, which come out of the Village Councils. According to Bishop, the delegates would have been permanently recallable:
The second principle of democracy for us is responsibilities. So the elected officiais musi at all times ensure that the mandate they are carrying out, if mandate it is. is the mandate the people want. And part of that responsibility means that the right to recall those we elect must be entrenched. We don't believe in Grenada in presidents-for-life. We beliere in service for life. And when you, stop serving, you must be recalled and get out of the way for somebody else to serve.
This system was the one outlined in the 1973 Manifesto:
Power will be rooted in the villages and at our places of work. At any time, the village can fire and replace its Council, its representative on the Parish Assembly, or its representative on the National Assembly. Together, the people of the villages and workers can throw out the whole National Assembly and put in a new one?
But this was still only a dream. The system of People's Assemblies was still 'embryonic', in Bishop's own words. While waiting for it to blossom, real power was concentrated inside the NJM, or more precisely, inside the CC, whose composition and even existence were unknown to the population. The crisis in the NJM In 1983, Grenada was in a state of malaise, if not crisis. One of the main reasons was that the price of exports was at its lowest in four years and the agricultural revenue had diminished accordingly. Despite the reforms accomplished by the revolution, the extreme dependence of a country like Grenada weighted on it very heavily. Efforts to break this chain (such as the construction of an international airport) demanded sacrifices, but had not yet borne fruit. Added to this were the difficulties and errors inherent in all revolutionary processes, due mainly to the lack of cadres in all areas and, since the beginning of 1983, to the growing pressure of imperialism. This resulted in a certain weariness in a large part of the population. Only a small minority had participated directly in the 1979 revolution and politicization was slow. This difficult situation was the backdrop to the crisis
In order for NJM militants (numbering around 400, of whom about 70 were full members) to be in control of the contradictions in which they found themselves, and to play a role in the progress of Grenadian society, one condition was necessary: maximum internal party democracy, superior to anything that could exist in that has not yet gained power. Militants must be able to discuss freely, to develop their arguments, and to study other historical experiences critically. Major debates must be thrashed out in conferences whose democratic preparation would be a powerful means of
But the NJM functioned in the opposite way. 'The relationship between the leadership and the base in the party was essentially a relationship between a leader and a subordinate. The leadership gave the directives which the militants applied without question, without debate, without contradiction.
The base was not in a position to exercise pressure on top, for there were not the internal structures permitting a democratic exchange from the base to the top,' explained Don Rojas, Bishop's press secretary. 'There was no party congress in four and a half years of state power. For many of us that was a fundamental error; (. . .) The Central Committee was not accountable to the base. It could thus be cut off from it. In fact, the functioning of the mass organizations—who held conferences—was more democratic than the
The NJM was an inward-looking organization functioning undemocratically. The militants were overwhelmed with meetings, but did not find a forum there for exchanges and debates that would allow them to intervene in a difficult situation. Since 1982, the party had sought a solution to these problems by jumping in feet first. This meant an assiduous study of 'Marxist-
The significance of the reference to 'Marxism-Leninism' must be emphasised. In the USSR the manutacture of a new theory, fraudulently christened Marxism-Leninism (and sometimes Marxism-Leninism-
Stalinism) had been both the means and the crowning of the battle led by
Stalin in the CPSU. The production of "manuals' and of 'supreme principles' had in fact involved a profound revision of the ideas of Marx and Lenin and the assertion of an untouchable dogma, a universal science and
'Marxism-Leninism' was similarly applied in the NJM by Coard's followers. This approach to educating cadres and members, including the use of texts by Stalin, could only diminish their critical spirit. It was a weapon in the hands of those who wanted to keep the party in line and to silence militants judged 'ideologically weak', who were in fact most closely
The Trinidadian writer Merle Hodge, who worked in Grenada during the revolution referred to 'robotization' when talking about the changes after
62 International Marxist Review that developed inside the NJM.
educating party members.
' he added. ® party's, linked to the masses.
1982:
Leninist' texts and an increase in tasks.
philosophy, cementing together party and state.
Towards the end of 1982, party organization began to tighten. The party began what now seems to many of us who witnessed it, a process of attempting to turn its members into robots.
Party organization was the portfolio of Bernard Coard. In January 1983 a new avalanche of rules, commitments, assignments and compulsory activities was heaped upon party members, taking up, if these were carried out, every minute of their waking hours. More and more duties were heaped upon their heads as the year went by. A system of residential weekends was instituted at which members studied literature selected by Bernard Coard
Much of it was to do with the principle of democratic centralism. Overwork and strain began to have a demoralising effect on party members. Their communities began to fall
The 'robotization' and the miseducation of the NJM described by Merle
Hodge could only encourage what she called 'its isolation from the masses' when the NJM found itself confronted with a complex situation.
It is hardly surprising that its undemocratic functioning led the NJM to a crisis when serious difficulties emerged. In general the transition to socialism constantly poses extremely complex problems. This is especially the case in a small isolated country like Grenada, still backward and dependent. And it is not possible even for the most lucid and well-prepared leaders not to have differences. Maximum democracy is thus necessary.
If the differences are not very widespread and an agreement can be reached.
the system may still function year by year, even if the problems are not debated and decisions are only taken within a restricted circle. But in the opposite case where differences are grave, they can unleash an explosive crisis, as in Grenada. Often the best (or least bad) solution to a complex situation is found by feeling one's way around. The less there is democracy,
According to Kendrick Radix, a founder of the NJM, two distinct factions emerged inside the CC in October 1982. The line of divide was essentially between the original founders of the NJM and those who joined later. Bishop, one of the founders, and Coard, one of those who joined the NJM later, were certainly the two strongest personalities involved. Radix says that there were different methods of approaching the problems of the country. This had been the case for several months. One side wanted to put into practice what it had read in books. Radix confirms that the party was steeped in the study of 'Marxist-Leninst' texts. By contrast, other members of the CO
Don Rojas explained that in 1983 'the notion that this process was not going fast enough entered into the ideological discussion in the party and led to a kind of cleavage. Some people said we needed to push it forward more rapildy. Others argued for a more rational, scientific, and less idealistic
An extraordinary meeting of the NJM CC opened on September 14, 1983.
It was meant to analyse the problems of Grenada and of the NJM. The down badly. 9
Factions form wanted to try to centre their analysis on the masses.
assessment of this question.
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 63 the more slow and difficult it is to correct any errors.
•10
difference of approach to the problems of the country which Radix noted are very evident in the minutes of this long meeting, which lasted three days.
Bishop's analysis differed from that of the majority of the CC. He
The CC has made a number of mistakes over the past 18 months. Because of the weak links with the masses we became bureaucratic and too formalistic in our approach. Visits to work places have disappeared, increasing non-attendance at normal councils and parish meetings, visits to communities to meet people at an informal level, decrease in the number of discussions and meetings with people in all areas of work, failure to participate in public activities, village meetings have disappeared. We have not paid sufficient regard to the material base in the country. (...) We have failed to point out to the masses that this period requires a number of sacrifices and if we are not prepared to build the economy through hard work we will not make it. We have to take the blame for the over economic
On the question of the crisis in the party he thought that 'the criticism and complaints from the party has to do with the lack of channels of communication for the membership to raise their complaints and grievances
As the discussion progressed, the CC majority allowed itself to get carried away. They painted a catastrophist picture of the situation. At first, they at least attempted to take into account the complexity of the problems. During the course of the discussion this was less and less the case. It seems that the crisis in the party, and especially the resignation of militants and the criticism of the CC, made them panic. Certain militants wanted a 'complete
. For the majority of the leadership the priority consisted
Coard demanded that the CC undertake more rigorous study of texts.) They explained that Bishop was not the appropriate leader to make the party truly
"Marxist-Leninist'. He did not have the necessary qualities, and proved incapable of leading the CC. Liam James thus proposed the establishment of a "joint leadership', composed of Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard.
The latter would thus rejoin the CC which he had quit a year earlier. By his own account he had been discouraged by his fruitless attempts to rectify the functioning of the CC, and to situate Bishop's responsibility for this
Under the system proposed by James, Bishop, 'lacking brilliance in tactics
', would be entrusted with the task similar to party spokesperson. He would use his charisma to represent the party to the Grenadian masses, which he would meet and mobilize, and to represent the party abroad. Coard would organise and educate the party, and elaborate strategy and tactics. In other words, on this bicycle-built-for-two, Bishop would pedal
Several members of the CC demanded that the discussion on the joint
64 International Marxist Review explained:
expectations of the people. ' which we need to address. 12
*Joint leadership' is proposed change of team' of making the party truly 'Marxist-Leninist' failure.
and strategy' and Coard would steer!
', starting with the CC. (Phyllis
leadership not be cut short at this meeting. They considered that the idea had not yet been fully thought through. But the majority demanded a vote.
The proposal was passed with nine votes for, one against and three abstentions. Bishop abstained. It was the first time in the history of the CC that a decision was taken by vote. Until then, the CC had always tried to
A few days later, a general meeting of full members of the NJM was convened for September 25. The members made sharp criticisms of the
NJM functioning. 'The party needs a decisive rupture with the past' one militant. 'The failure of the CC to pass on information to the members,' said another, 'shows that it behaves like a clique and does not inspire
With the decision on the "joint leadership', the majority of the CC was in a position of strength when it presented itself to the party militants. Not only because their proposal had been accepted by a large majority in the
CC. but perhaps especially because they were the only ones presenting a coherent proposal, simple and new, albeit wrong. Only they seemed capable of providing a seemingly logical answer to militants who wanted both more
Bishop and other CC members, particularly Unison Whiteman, had corverall party to notineng and that resis relationship weed the rabien
But they had not proposed a comprehensive alternative, when they could have opposed the 'joint leadership' during the party meeting.
Bishop certainly smelled something fishy in the proposal. He was more or less aware that it was only a smokescreen, destined to shove him out of the real centre of power sooner or later. But he let himself be placed on the defensive. The only effective counter-offensive would have consisted of grasping the real problem at its root. This would happen by a battle for a veritable revolution in the functioning of the NJM, and a questioning of
In leading this struggle, Bishop was not completely disarmed. Against the compilation of 'Marxist-Leninist' texts, he could have contrasted the real, not mythical, functioning of Lenin's Bolshevik Party. There, not only did members of the CC and the party have the right to organize to defend their positions, but the party press also published these debates. The 'Marxist-
Leninist' scholars of the NJM would evidently have condemned this as characteristic of a 'social-democratic' party! A battle for a new course within the party would have spread quickly to the whole range of problems on which CC members had different approaches. All things considered, it was the democratic preparation of an NJM congress that was on the agenda.
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 65 reach consensus.
confidence at the base of the party.' democratic and more efficient party functioning.
the course that it had been taking for some time.
Bishop's response
', said
66 International Marxist Review
There are many reasons explaining why Bishop did not lead such a battle. First, he did not have a clear conception of true democratic functioning. How much was there in any of the parties that served him as a reference point? As in the NJM, all important debates were the prerogative of a handful of leaders, and the conferences were mere formalities. Bishop was hardly prepared for a theoreticai rupture with this type of functioning which had imposed itselt tor decades under the assumed cover of 'democratic centralism' . According to his friend Tim Hector, revolutionary leader of Antigua, 'Maurice Bishop was not a theoretican. His understanding of socialism was as profound as anyone's I know, or whose books I've read, but he was never interested in the idea of socialism as it appears in History (...) This is why he did not understand Stalinism as a social theory.'' This is equally why he underestimated the danger to the Grenadian revolution that his adversaries represented inside the CC.
He was thoroughly hostile to the idea that ideological currents could organise inside the party with the aim of convincing a majority of militants during the course of an important political debate. For him, this could only weaken the NJM and break up its unity. For ten years he had always been the conciliator inside the CC, the one who tried to reach consensus. Even if he was able to take a strong position in the debates, he refused to abuse his position as party 'leader' . He raise this question at a party assembly on September 25. The minutes of this meeting printed in the magazine Caribbean Review in autumn 1983 say: 'Our history shows that the masses build up a personality cult around a single individual. He admitted that his style of leadership had led to a vacillation, indecisiveness in many cases. He confessed that maybe his conception of leadership is idealistic because of the historical abuse of power and one-man leadership. He and his contemporaries have distaste for one-man leadership and he has a strong position on this.
His rejection of currents organised around ideas during party debates, as was practised in Lenin's party, is linked to his opposition to the multi-party system. In his view, the existence of several parties could only lead to the break-up of the community, as is the case in Jamaica and Trinidad. He referred to this as 'cannibalism'. He put the multi-party system in the same category as the parliamentary system in Westminster, and did not understand that the possibility of forming political parties is inherent in a democratic system based on People's Assemblies. Its prohibition by law or in practice can only end up in power of a single party—or more precisely of the leadership of that party-and not of the masses. In Grenada the rejection of the multi-party system, already expressed in the 1973 NJM Manifesto, and the absence of a clear distinction between what arises from functioning during normal times and what applies to exceptional conditions (such as the fight against the terrorist acts that were rampant in 1979 and 1980) led rapidly to a situation where political problems were left to be sorted out by administrative measures, indeed imprisonments (which were
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 67 obviously justified in genuine cases of defence of the revolution).
Finally, there was another obstacle in the way of a commitment to a battle inside the NJM. Failure to have led this battle earlier, as some of the NJM founders would have wished, singularly weakened their position in September 1983. Several had been excluded from the CC or had resigned from the NJM in disgust. The party had been miseducated, deformed and had begun, as we have seen, a process of 'robotization'. And as the discussions inside the CC had been held secretly up to that point, the party members had been poorly prepared to lead a debate with a view to holding a congress. The General Assembly convenes For Richard Hart, the functioning of the NJM poses no problems. It is not important that the militants could not choose their leaders, that the CC was altered by co-optation, and that one of the most popular leaders. Kendrick Radix, was ousted in 1982 without the party ever being informed. According to Hart, there was no need for a congress, for the General Assemblies would have taken their place. On the contrary, the General Assembly of September 25, bringing together 56 full members, proves that a democratically prepared congress based on texts, possibly contradictory, is irreplaceable for settling debates. What happened at this conference shows how militants who are not used to participating in real debates can be easily manipulated by the demagogic assault of leaders. It is worth spending some time on it.
To begin with, Ewart Layne, CC member, presents a report. He sees himself as the mouthpiece of the base of the party. He explains that the CC is the source of the problems, that the revolution is in danger and that to rectify the situation, it is necessary to begin by creating a "joint leadership' (The meeting took place when George Louison, the only CC member to have voted against this decision, was out of the country. The party assembly was summoned simply to make a decision on one sole point: should the decision of the CC be applied or not?) The members of the CC majority put forward the following reasoning: a) if the decision of the CC is not applied, this means that the NJM is not governed by democratic centralism, and is therefore not a Leninist party; b) the future of the Grenadian revolution depends on the existence of a Leninist party to lead it. Will it take the road of 'the struggle to build socialism' or the road of 'opportunism' and 'degeneration', as in 'Egypt and Somalia'? This is really what is at stake; c) it goes without saying that if the party chooses the second road, the CC members who voted for the "joint leadership' could not remain in that instance. This would have to be the case for 'any aspiring Communist, any aspiring Marxist-Leninist, any Comrade who stands for principle'
Maurice Bishop is absent from the beginning of this meeting. After the.
68 International Marxist Review CC session, which had expressed much defiance towards him and had troubled him deeply, he had been granted a week's reflection. When he returned to the CC on September 24, a day later than he should have, the meeting had been cancelled without him (or most of the CC) having been informed. Still troubled, his thoughts not yet sufficiently formed, he wanted to express himself in front of the CC first, as had been agreed, and not in front of a General Assembly, of which he only learned at the last minute. Here the CC majority only told a half truth. They labelled Bishop 'disdainful' of the CC membership and of the base of the party, to whom they claimed to give every chance to express themselves. This was the third stage of the manouevre.
In this context, when Bishop finally comes to the General Assembly, after a delegation had asked him to, his hints concerning the existence of 'groupings and factions' inside the CC are interpreted as signs of weakness and evasion, confirming his 'petty bourgeois' character, as certain CO members had denounced him. Bishop is in no position to present an overall alternative to his critics, who claim to give democracy inside the NJM a new course. Although it was he who had raised the problem, Bishop falls into the trap. Thus he is brought to the point of explaining that, not having confidence in the CC, he hopes to withdraw from it and, while waiting to make his decision, he will leave it to the CC, which he characterizes as the 'vanguard of the vanguard'. And at the end of the meeting, hassled on all sides, worried about contributing to the division in the party, it only remains for him to declare in the general enthusiasm that his 'response to the CC criticism and decision was petty bourgeois' and 'I sincerely accept the criticism and will fulfill the decision in practice'. The assassination rumour Why did the party members' attitude towards Bishop change so completely between the General Assemblies of September 25 and October 13, asks Richard Hart? What had 'poisoned the atmosphere' in the interval? For him, the answer is simple. It was the fact that, the night before the October 13 meeting, Bishop had spread a rumour that the CC members wanted to assassinate him. Moreover, according to Hart, nothing significant had happened in Grenada between the September 25 meeting and the surfacing of the infamous rumour.
If one believes this version of things, one cannot understand why, on Wednesday, October 12 at 7 a.m., even before the rumour broke, about 60 soldiers, NJM members, convened a meeting where Bishop was violently denounced. The next day, one of the participants said: 'Before, I would have obeyed Maurice Bishop's orders. Yesterday's meeting opened my eyes.' This meeting decided to send a motion to the Political Bureau (PB). Recalling the decision taken concerning the "joint leadership', this motion
demanded the expulsion of all elements who do not submit to the decisions taken by the Central Committee and the party members, who do not uphold them, do not put them into practice, but on the contrary do their best to impuie the work of the party and to spread anti-party propaganda'
According to this motion, the NJM army branch 'waits for the orders and
Reading Richard Hart, it is impossible to understand why, a few hours betore the army meeting, at 1 a.m., several of Bishop's personal guards were woken up and secretly taken to a meeting. It was then explained to them that, henceforth, they were to take their orders from the CC and not from Bishop, and that their task was to defend the entire working class and not the life of a particular individual. Is it so surprising that Bishop feared
These two facts alone make it clear that what happened between September
25 and October 12 was extremely important in understanding what came
Bishop went on a two-week journey on September 26. During this time
George Louison and Unison Whiteman, two of his main allies in the CC, were also out of the country. Taking advantage of these absences, Coard and his supporters did not remain inactive. They sought to isolate Bishop and those close to him, and to win over the party members and the army.
Thus, the salary of the soldiers— or of one section-was raised. According
We had discussed for several months trying to find a small increase for the soldiers. I remember that Unison was probably the stongest person on that. He made those points virtually at every meeting. But Bernard Coard and Company said, 'You see, we are getting that for you. The reason you didn't get it before is because Maurice was not pushing hard
Bernard also visited all the army camps. He moved from project to project, trying to give himself a high degree of visibility.' And if George Louison during those two weeks Maurice was overseas, they called in all party members, did full assessments of their personal situations, financial positions, and other things. They made
When I looked at what was done in those two weeks with party members, I saw that we ran the danger of creating a real elite in the society. A number of party members already had relatively good incomes, in the Grenadian context. And these people were discussing with them their personal situations, to give them even more benefits, so that the party was going to get more benefits than the average person among the masses.
During the same period, Coard held meetings with NJM militants who, for statutory reasons, had not attended the September 25 meeting and, says
George Louison, Coard 'gave a very one-sided picture of how things had happened, running a slander campaign against Maurice in particular, and against me, because I had opposed the joint leadership question. '16 The CC over which Coard presided made several innovations the decisions of the Central Committee' thus seriously "poisoned' before the 'rumour' launched, surfaced.
for his security?
next. This is what we will examine.
to George Louison:
enough on it'. It was totally dishonest.
is to be believed:
big promises to help them solve personal situations.
secondly
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 69
• The atmosphere in the party was
', which Bishop allegedly
70 International Marxist Review in functioning. Louison again:
A proposal was put forward for the establishment of a Central Committee Secretariat, and in that the name of Maurice Bishop was not mentioned at all (...) By the time we returned on October 8, they had virtually placed themselves in control of the party and in control of the military, preparing to remove from leadership. '
The least that could be said about Coard and his followers is that they put themselves in a position to win in a test of strength with Maurice Bishop. It seems likely that this idea dominated the high spheres of the NJM. Since before Bishop's return there had been a climate of hysteria. The members of the CC majority, or at least some of them, like Strachan and Ventour, spread three rumours, which can be summed up as such: 1) Maurice Bishop refuses to uphold the principle of the "joint leadership', which he had accepted before his departure. Thus rejecting Leninism, he is incapable of going beyond social democracy. 2) During his voyage, Maurice Bishop and George Louison indulged in factional manouevres. Thus, Bishop would have told everything to the Cuban leaders and sought their support. 3) Last but no least, Bishop planned to have CC members assassinated.
Let's examine these accusations. It seems that after he left Grenada, Bishop continued to question the viability of a joint Bishop-Coard leadership. Especially since his relationship with Coard had not been good for a year. He did not refuse to implement the decision of the CC, as Hart claims, but would have wanted a more thorough discussion in order to examine how the system would work. He thought that upon his return, Coard would be waiting for him as usual at the plane and that he could discuss this with him later. In fact, as we shall see, Bishop did not have the opportunity to have any personal contact with Coard after his arrival.
When Bishop's plane landed on Saturday October 8, contrary to normal practise, only one minister, Selwyn Strachan, was there to meet him. They discussed for four hours. Bishop let Strachan know of his concerns, and asked that the "joint leadership' question be on the agenda of the PB meeting scheduled for the following Wednesday.
It seems that Strachan then deliberately distorted Bishop's proposals when he reported them to other members of the leadership. Tim Hector stated in the October 26, 1983 journal Outlet that Strachan was a CIA agent assigned to foment division inside the CC of the NJM. The October 31, 1983 edition of the Trinidad journal The Bomb, described the Strachan-Bishop meeting as 'the act of the modern Judas'
Whatever the case, the CC members had already been saying for several days that Bishop refused the "joint leadership'. Was that an extrapolation based on the fact that during his trip, George Louison allegedly explained to party members that the question was not yet closed? In any case it seems that the majority of the CC, or at least certain members, had made up their minds to the extent that they did not even need the slightest pretext. As we have seen, they prepared themselves to confront Bishop. Certain leaders explained that if Bishop refused the joint leadership, then the problem could
resolve itself as in Afghanistan, where the conflicts between the factions of the Popular Democratic Party were settled by physical liquidation.
It is understandable that some leaders were troubled by Bishop's impromptu stopover in Cuba on his way back from Europe, and that he had been welcomed with a great reception. But can anything be read into that other than a desire on the part of the Cuban leadership to show friendship and profound esteem for Bishop and the Grenadian revolution, under increasing threat from the United States? Fidel Castro was absolutely categoric on the subject: Maurice Bishop had not told him a single thing about what was going on inside the NJM. The only thing that he did was make a 'self-criticism', declaring that 'he had the impression that he had not devoted all his attention to work among the masses'. Fidel Castro admits that 'it is difficult to understand how, with all the embassy personnel that we had there, we were not aware of the division that was underway'
, he explains, 'the greatest criticism that we have to make of our political and diplomatic personnel, and of those giving military aid.'
It is certain however that another Caribbean party was informed about the crisis in the NJM: the Workers Party of Jamaica. Its leader Trevor
Munroe confirms having arrived in Grenada on September 26, the day of
Bishop's departure for Europe. According to a pamphlet by the Maurice
Coard called Trevor Munroe, without first telling Bishop, to discuss the problems in the
Party. Munroe never discussed with Bishop, heard only Coard and obviously sided with
Munroe's version is slightly different: he received a telephone call from
Coard on September 23 and another from Bishop. He acquainted himself with NJM documents in Grenada, and approved of the measures taken. The
Coard and his clique did not seek the advice of seasoned Parties which have held power for years and deeply rated among the people. Instead they went to a fringe party for ad-
Where did the notion that Bishop was preparing to have members of the
CC assassinated originate? It was claimed that Cletus Saint-Paul, Bishop's security official, announced on the telephone during the stopover in Cuba that upon his return 'blood will flow'. Were his words deliberately distorted by certain CC members, wanting to precipitate a military solution which was, in their eyes, indispensable in shoving aside the 'petty bourgeois'
Bishop? Was it rather (or equally) the result of CIA manipulation? In any case, the person who communicated with Saint-Paul denies that he made
Whether or not they believed this tale, several members of the CC, including the Coards, decided to leave their homes. And Selwyn Strachan went alone to the airport to meet Bishop. Coard has asserted since that he was afraid that upon landing, Cletus Saint-Paul would pounce on him and assassinate him. Several elements leave room for doubt that the CC members
Nothing less!
'This was'.
Bishop Foundation,
Coard and his clique. 18
Maurice Bishop Foundation writes:
vice and guidance.
those fatal pronouncements.
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 71
72 Inrernational Marxist Revien: truly believed that Bishop wanted them killed. One many wonder, for example, why no measure was taken to neutralise Saint-Paul after their return. At the PB and CC meetings the following Wednesday, Bishop was not challenged with this. The next day, during the General Assembly of NJM members, the leaders used this accusation to whip up militants against Bishop, but it was not the central theme of the interventions against him ... though it would have deserved to be. Finally, the following days, when the NJM had to explain to the Grenadian people why measures were taken against Bishop, this accusation was never repeated. Neither was it in the hours following his death when he was branded the 'leader of the counterrevolution' and 'friend of imperialism'. Breakdown of relations During the course of the days following his return, Bishop's disquiet grew. On Saturday, October 8, he was surprised that only Strachan met him at the airport. As Coard, who lived next door to him, and several other CC members had left their residences, he did not get to join them either Saturday, October 8 or Sunday, October 9. As Minister for Defence of the Interior, he was surprised that, contrary to the norm, the members of the CC assigned to this department did not come to see him. Similarly he received no news of Coard, Vice-Premier and 'co-leader'. He felt 'frozen out'
This impression was reinforced when, Sunday or Monday, Cletus SaintPaul went to find out what was going on. He discovered that Coard, Strachan and perhaps others were in a meeting. But on the telephone, Strachan told Saint-Paul that he did not know where Coard was.
Monday October 10, having learned that he had been so badly received, Einstein Louison, Chief of Staff of the Army, and General Hudson Austin came to Bishop's house. Einstein Louison has written since:
Maurice's spirit had lifted by the time we left. Our pledge to him that we would work for a peaceful solution to the problem and that we would never let him down further found, 20eeting coming up on Wednesday and he is certain that a solution would be strengthened him. Maurice told us that we need not worry since there is a Central Com-
On Tuesday October 11 Jacqueline Creft, Minister of Education, visited Bishop. She probably informed him of what she had learned since his departure to Europe. He saw Hudson Austin. Did he seem then as worried as the following day when the trade unionist Vincent Noel visited him early in the morning? According to a letter that Noel wrote to the CC, Noel told Austin his 'grave concern about the situation in the party' and of his 'fear of bloodshed' • Austin replied that the situation was worse than I thought' and that the 'tension among CC members was so high that they stopped sleeping in their houses '. Did Austin let Bishop know of his distress? In any case, he told Cletus Saint-Paul to 'keep his head on his shoulders' and not to 'let anybody touch the chief.
On Tuesday, during the night, Bishop spent two hours with Noel. He told him of his fears. He raised the fact that only Strachan met him at the airport. His analysis was that in and of itself it was only an incident, but that 'it had to be seen within the wider context of all the other things which
. For example, he had learned from one of his guards that there was talk of an "Afghanistan solution'. Noel, who tried to reassure
Bishop, could not hide the fact that, the previous week, he had been told that Chalkie Ventour had made such a statement. Bishop explained to him that 'in recent time he has become increasingly convinced from all the bits and pieces of evidence available to him that there were behind the scenes unprincipled manoeuvres to remove him'. He added that as far as he was concerned he could continue to work with Bernard Coard, even if the party had chosen him 'outright as leader' (in his place), and that he had no problem with what had been clarified on the question of functioning of the joint leadership'. Nevertheless he estimated that 'the main concern at this time
During the next few hours, the situation took a grave turn. An hour after
Noel's departure, at 1 a.m., several of Bishop's personal guards were gathered together. Upon his return one of them told Saint-Paul, who had not been called, that the meeting was 'about the Prime Minister'
At about 6 a.m., Einstein Louison arrived at Bishop's home. He told him that he had just been called to a meeting of military members of the NJM.
He added that Austin, who was the only general of the army, had not been aware of it when he telephoned him. He also learned that Layne, PB member, was behind the meeting. Neither Saint-Paul, who came under the army, nor Maurice Bishop-Commander in Chief-had been informed.
, said Einstein Louison, 'was extremely surprised and grieved by the news. His only comment was 'this means I am out of power.'21
Richard Hart does not say a single word about these events that happened after October 8. He knows how much they weighed upon Maurice Bishop.
He himself makes reference in his article to the manuscript notes that report the interventions made during the General Assembly of NJM, which took place Thursday, October 13. Noticeably absent from this text is the entirety of Bishop's 45-minute intervention. One can, however, read that Bishop spoke of 'the tension in the country', evoked 'rumours of conspiracy' that he discovered upon his return, and said there seemed to be a mood 'in the
'he had been accused of being a social-democrat, of being in favour of a cult of personality and that members of the Central Committee had been implicated in these allegations'. He also spoke of the meetings of members of the security and of the army of Wednesday, which they tried to hide
The meetings of the PB. then the CC, of Wednesday, October 12 took place in a very tense atmosphere. Certain participants, notably Chalkie Venwere happening'
'Maurice' party leaning towards blood and Afghanistan' from him.
was the behind the scenes manoeuvres against him' to expose this at the PB, the following morning.
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 73
, and that he intended
• He learned, he said, that
tour, who spoke of Afghanistan, played with their pistols in a threatening manner. The afternoon, the army was placed on alert. Einstein Louison tells that upon coming back from this meeting, around midnight, he met
Bishop: 'He stopped me but could not say a word to me. He was broken
During the course of the following day, Bishop, Fitzroy Bain and George
Louison (Unison Whiteman was still abroad) voted against the "joint leadership', which became a veritable farce in this situation of rampant coup d etat
... The following day, Bishop explained that during his trip, 'he had made up his mind to go along with the idea of the "joint leadership' even if he was still having difficulties' but that what had happened since his return had made him change his mind. He affirmed that these events had demonstrated that one part of the CC wanted to marginalize and oust him.
notes taken at the General Assembly. "The position of a section of the CC is not wanting him in the CC.' He has 'no problem with democratic cen-
In other words, Bishop stated that he was ready to quit the CC, if that was the wish of the majority, but he could not participate in a sham "joint
. He was no doubt conscious that the scope of the problem went beyond the party. This touches on one of the big problems underlying this crisis. Strictly speaking, insofar as it was a question of "marrying the qualities been considered an internal NJM matter. But from the moment that it clearly took the character of Bishop's marginalization inside the CC, if not his eviction pure and simple, then the problem took on another dimension. For the CC was not only the head of the NJM, but of the entire country. Up to that time the Grenadian people had more or less supported the policies of that leadership (which they barely knew). And if it was discontent on certain aspects of the revolution, at least they had confidence in 'Maurice' to steer them into port. What made this possible was the fact that in the
CC Bishop, and those who Hart called the 'old guard', had succeeded in
With Bishop marginalized, the political balance in the CC broke down.
The majority of the CC could have given free rein to its impatience in front of what it called the "ideological backwardness' of the Grenadian people, multiplying the ill-considered repressive measures and, in a complementary fashion, promoting the transformation of the NJM into a privileged elite. In other words, the question at stake was which team would rule the country? And which policy would it apply? This was not an internal affair
74 International Marxist Review and speechless.
Bishop votes against the joint leadership
'If comrades wanted one leader that was okay' tralism. I have gone with it over the years' leadership' of Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard' opposing the 'voluntarism' called the 'young Turks.'
, he said, according to the
, as it was presented, it could have
, to say the least, of Coard and those who were
of the NJM. The masses had something to say on the matter. Some protested that as long as Bishop remained Prime Minister, and the nominal
'leader'of the country, the composition and functioning of the leading bodies of the NJM were not the property of the population. It is clear that this argument has no value from the moment that the Prime Minister was the
On Wednesday a rumour began to develop that four CC members, including Bernard Coard and his wife Phyllis, wanted to kill Bishop. Where did this rumour originate? Who was at its source? For Hart, it was clearly
Bishop. The proof, according to Hart, was that one of Bishop's guards (Errol
George) supposedly declared to his superiors that Bishop had informed him and Cletus Saint-Paul of the existence of a conspiracy, and had asked them to draw up a list of persons to warn, and had approved the proposed names.
According to Hart, Errol George repeated the accusation the next day in front of the whole party. Reading the summary of the manuscript of the
NJM General Assembly, it is significant that Hart does not repeat Errol
George's words faithfully. George did not say that he had received instructions from Bishop directly, as Hart claims, but that 'Saint-Paul checked him saying he had instructions from the Commander in Chief. They had to go to the masses to explain that Phyllis Coard and Bernard Coard were
This detail might be important. Accepting George's accusation in good faith, it cannot be excluded that, in his concern to guarantee Bishop's safety, for which he was responsible, Saint-Paul may have gone beyond Bishop's instructions. Even less can one exclude the hypothesis that, if the October
18 radio news was true, Saint-Paul had counselled Bishop to 'kill or arrest' his adversaries. And according to what one CC member declared at the meeting the next day, Saint-Paul already had this idea in his head when
Bernard Coard resigned from the CC in 1982. But can one lend credence
Bishop declared at the NJM General Assembly that 'he can't confirm or deny Saint-Paul's activities' but wondered 'why does it take one year unequivocally' that what was said on his part taken for rumour was a lie.
He added that 'the whole event is suspicious, that this was done just before the Political Bureau and the Central Committee meetings.'
Other hypotheses and variations have been formulated since. For example, that, having been informed of a conspiracy, which in that context was plausible, Bishop would have wanted certain trustworthy people to know, and that he would have asked them 'to inform the masses in case he was physically threatened or killed'. This would be quite coherent with the fact that Richard Hart was on the list of people to be warned. Bishop did not want his eventual murder masked as a 'suicide' or an 'accident' rumour had been spread at the wrong time, perhaps because of the 'flight' resulting from Errol George's declarations to his superior, at around 7.30.
spokesperson of the CC trying to kill Maurice Bishop'.
to these statements?
to report on Saint-Paul's activities in 1982'
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 75
'. He stated 'categorically and
. But the
76 International Marxist Review
On the Monday, strikes began, notably at the site of the international airport. On Tuesday 18, school students started organizing demonstrations. They occupied Pearls airport. The next day they gave the signal for the demonstration which, at first conceived to put pressure on the CC, was to hand over Maurice Bishop. During this time buses and cars packed with people arrived from all over the island. The majority of workers were on strike. That day Grenada saw its largest demonstration since 1974
Richard Hart has almost nothing to say on the process that culminated in this extraordinary demonstration. He simply says: "Over the next few days (putting Bishop under house arrest) the CC, no doubt conscious of an upsurge of mass support for Bishop, endeavoured to work out a compromise with him (...).' Hart thinks that the CC was 'imprudent' in not having tried to reach a compromise before, as a 'conflict with the massess' could have been avoided. But he seems to approve of the attitude of the CC once the conflict opened up. This led him to ignore the fundamental problem confronting Coard and his followers: faced with growing popular protest, they could either go against the wishes of the masses consciously, or retreat and give in to the demands expressed in the workplaces and the streets: the liberation of Bishop and the public debate in which the masses could have their say.
They chose the first course. Putting Bishop under house-arrest was one thing. An ill-informed observer could well conclude that the NJM leadership was suffering from collective paranoia, stirred up by deft CIA manoeuvres. But to go against the demands of the masses has nothing to do with the way secret agents operate.
The decision had an implacable logic. After a few days, the CC withdrew from the masses any elements of power they had possessed. The CC had anticipated reaction from the population after Thursday 13. The militia weapons which had been disseminated all over the country were withdrawn from their depots and centralized by the army close to the capital. That was the origin of the famous arsenal that the North American army was to discover at the time of the invasion and was then exposed in Washington. This measure was taken after the inhabitants of Maurice Bishop's village seized arms to protect him during Wednesday night. The disarming of the militias was a major decision. The gravity of this decision was subsequently emphasised, correctly, by the Sandinista press.
Several leaders who would have played an important role on the side of the masses were arrested: the Chief of Staff Einstein Louison, the trade unionist Vincent Noel after Thursday. Kendrick Radix on Saturday night, George Louison the following Tuesday. Unison Whiteman, urgently returning to Grenada on the Saturday, participated in negotiations with Coard. He went underground the Tuesday night to avoid arrest. Threats were no longer put off. On the Friday, it was announced on the radio that 'the security forces would take firm measures against any person who engaged in activities causing disorder and disturbing the peace.
Did Bishop truly feel threatened? Fidel Castro gave a partial response to this question. It has been known since the Cuban Communist Party declaration of October 20 that the Wednesday morning, that is, before going to the PB, Bishop went to the Cuban Embassy. In an interview in
Newsweek Fidel Castro supplied the following detail: 'It was only the night before his arrest that Maurice Bishop came to our embassy and explained that a grave division had occurred (inside the NJM). He feared for his life.
It was a brief exchange. He added that he was satisfied to have told us.
The evidence concerning the 'rumour' is contradictory. No hypothesis can be held, or excluded for certain. But there is no doubt that:
1) in view of the events that had preceded the Wednesday morning, Bishop laid the basis for certain precautions before going to the PB meeting, and that if he feared for his life, as Fidel Castro said, he was entitled to make
2) that with certain members of the CC having escalated the tension in the country for a month, and having thrown around talk of an Afghanistan solution', it was not surprising that this situation would produce a rumour of a conspiracy against Bishop. As George Louison pointed out, 'there was
Bishop was placed under house-arrest on October 13. The reaction of the population was to become more and more animated. The two driving forces of the protest movement were the working class and the youth. On Friday,
October 14 Selwyn Strachan went to a printshop. He announced that Coard was the new Prime Minister and tried to make them print a tract condemning Bishop. The workers and the people that he spoke to chased him out of the capital. Faced with Strachan's blunder, Coard had a communique published in which he announced his resignation from the government. He did not mention Bishop. It was a manoeuvre to defuse protest. But the protests were relaunched the following day by Kendrick Radix, who organızed a small demonstration in St. George's to make it known publicly that
Bishop was under house-arrest. As Minister for National Mobilization.
Strachan made his way to several workplaces in the capital to explain wh!
sanctions had to be taken by the NJM against Bishop, who refused to yield to majority rule. Everywhere, he got the same reception. Workers responded ed in the small industrial zone in the south of the capital St. George's. The signatories asked that Bishop and Coard each explain their positions to the masses at a meeting. These workers were only applying what the revolution had been teaching them for more than four years: Grenada is not like other places. The peoples representatives must be permanently accountable.
it known;
a material basis for a rumour of that kind'.
Bishop is arrested by saying 'don't come back without Maurice' something wrong, we will be able to sort it out'
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 77
' or 'if Maurice has done
'. A petition was circulariz-
78 International Marxist Review
On the Sunday night, Hudson Austin read a CC communique on the radio. He tried to discredit Bishop, blaming him for all evils in Grenada, and accused him of 'exercising unlimited powers'. The CC was careful not to convene the People's Assemblies where the leaders normally explained themselves. But it was precisely in such a crisis situation that these assemblies would have been more useful! It is not even a question of a popular revolutionary government supposedly leading the country. While in their vast majority the Grenadians knew nothing about the 'CC of the NJM', a clandestine body whose composition was unknown, the communique explained abruptly: 'The NJM wishes to assure our people that the Central Committee of the NJM is well in control of the present situation.' Coard sets himself against the people Perhaps the CC truly thought that the population would be convinced by the communique and by the argument that 'a principle is a principle' and must be applied to all, particularly Bishop. Coard declared to George Louison: Even if it takes 10 years, the masses are going to understand' that the NJM was right to stand firm. George Louison explained that after the discussions that he had had with Coard and Strachan for several days following:
They were behaving like people who had reached a point of fanaticism and were not prepared to listen to any form of reason. Coard by that time had tasted the power he always wanted, and was relishing it. Both he and Strachan were in good moods, puffing cigars while the negotiations were going on. Coard thought that with the party and the army on his side, there was no way that he could lose the power. 23
Since the Friday, NJM members were having to explain the measures taken. With the strikes and the demonstrations that started Monday, their situation become more and more difficult. They had to convince the population not to take part in them. They lost all credibility. The CC had either to give way rapidly or to accept a confrontation that could become violent. George Louison explained that 'people were losing patience. We were holding them back by saying 'Look, we will be able to find a solution'' But, he says:
It was very clear that Bernard and company no longer cared about the masses of the people.
We pointed out that the situation could easily develop into a civil war because the people were so incensed they would do anything to get back their leader, and therefore the party had a responsibility to ensure that no violence took place in the country.
Bernard said that he didn't buy that scenario because the situation was that he could permit the people to demonstrate for any amount of weeks, that they could demonstrate over and over. To use his exact words, 'They could stay in the streets for weeks, after a while they are bound to get tired and hungry and want peace.' He said 'Williams did it in 1970 and survived, Gairy did it in "73 to us in St. George's and it could be done again.'
Coard forgot only one thing: neither in Trinidad in 1970 nor in Grenada in 1973 had the strikes ended without the use of force. It could be said that when Coard made these cynical pronouncements the bureaucratic spiral in
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 79 which he was caught up was close to breaking point. How is it possible that he and his followers could so rapidly lose touch with the masses. to the point of making comparisons with Gairy or Williars?
To understand this, it is necessary to take into account the social and ideological pressures exerted upon them. Certainly every party claiming to be socialist is faced with the temptation to confuse the historical interests of the proletariat and of humanity with its own immediate organizational interests, in other words, to confuse the means with the ends. Any leader-. ship may be more or less inclined to confuse its particular interests with those of its organization. This universal phenomenon demands that conscious measures be taken to counter this. Especially when a party comes to power, for then the pressure becomes ten times more powerful. The social weakness of the NJM For historical reasons, the NJM and its leadership were particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon. The participation of the masses at the time of the seizure of power had been much weaker than in other popular revolutíons. And militants were educated in the idea that 'the NJM made revolution' and not the masses. After the seizure of power, the NJM was even less inclined to make the distinction between itself and the future of the revolution, as the masses remained unpoliticised, and the working class only represented a minority force. The fact that the NJM had few members, its clandestine character and its relative isolation could only make it very receptive to this sort of conception.
Another factor was at work here: its low proletarian social composition. An important part of the NJM concentrated its efforts on the functioning of the administration and the army. It tended to fuse with the state apparatus and to have a distorted view of it. It is likely that in 1983 Reagan's more open threats against Grenada reinforced the conviction of the officers to be the guarantors and thus the sole trustees of the objectives of the revolution. Their desire that the society be led firmly could only increase.
These substitutionist tendencies in the NJM were partially offset by the efforts undertaken to develop a 'participatory democracy'. But 1983 saw a weakening of mass activity, and thus a relaxation of popular pressure. Moreover, members of the leadership participated less in meetings of the People's Assemblies and were thus under less pressure. On the one hand they enjoyed a relatively privileged situation compared with the majority of Grenadians, even if they received very meagre pay (several lived with their parents). Almost all were ministers, and thus employers, or found themselves in a position of command in the army, which modified their relationship to the masses. Finally, they had the opportunity to travel and to frequent high places. They could observe at leisure the considerable material privileges enjoyed notably by those who occupied similar posi-
80 International Marxist Review tions in the USSR. Were not the leaders of the USSR, in their eyes, the authentic heirs of Lenin? The temptation to imitate them and to throw themselves body and soul into international nomenklatura could only be great for some of them. All the more great as they held a more elevated opinion of their own mission.
Certainly the corrupting pressures inherent in the exercising of power were exerted on all the leaders. But not all the leaders were equally susceptible. The founders of the NJM who were rooted in the masses, who had undergone the test of numerous struggles and were often of exceptional human quality, were better prepared to resist this danger. Coard and his followers generally had fewer links to Grenadian society. Some were only about 20 years old when, the day after the revolution, they were assigned national responsibilities, especially at the head of the army. They had not lived through experiences which would have tempered them, comparable to the Sandinista "muchachos'. Their accession to the PB of the NJM at the end of 1982 placed James, Layne and Ventour-who played a key role in the crisis—in a much more 'heady' situation than before. It encouraged pressures that, already, tended to elevate them above society. As for Selwyn Strachan, Chris De Riggs and especially Phyllis Coard, the trade unionist Jim Wardally considered that they had a strong tendency towards 'antiworking class' behaviour in the exercise of their ministerial functions. Problems of ideology Ideological factors also contributed to the corruption of a section of the NJM leaders. It is not the first time in history that the interaction of sociological and ideological factors began a process of bureaucratisation having catastrophic consequences. Look no further than Pol Pot and his group.
Two conceptions of the relationship between the party and the masses rode side by side inside the NJM. They probably also co-existed inside the heads of several leaders, such as Maurice Bishop. One conception originated in the first years of the NJM when, drawing the balance sheet of the 1973-74 strikes, the leaders decided to make it a Leninist-type party and reflected upon the notion of a vanguard party:
• the Mass Vanguard Organization is to operate within the Organized Mass Movementthey are separate yet make up a complete whole. The Vanguard must have no power outside of the Organized Mass Movement though it influences and guides the Organized Mass
Movement . . • In the New State the Vanguard functions within the Assemblies not above the Assemblies' 25
This conception of the relationship between the party and the masses which joined together the ideas of Marx and Lenin, comes up in the writings of the old Trinidadian anti-Stalinist Marxist, CLR James, whose thoughts had a great influence on the workers movement in the region. When he lived in London, Bishop was a sympathiser, if not a member, of the Race Today Collective, closely linked to CLR James.
In non-industrialized countries like Grenada, revolutionaries who want to be 'Leninist' tend to adopt substitutionist theories concerning the relationship between the vanguard and the masses. One of the reasons why leaders like Maurice Bishop had, at least at first, avoided falling into this trap is the existence of a large and active working class in Trinidad, composed in part of Grenadians. Large oilfields surround the islands in the waters bordering Venezuela, not far from Grenada. For decades many Grenadians went there seeking work. This was the case for Bishop's father, who himself was born and spent his early childhood in Aruba. It was also the case with
Tubal Uriah 'Buzz' Butler who, in the 1930s, was the charismatic leader of the oil workers of Trinidad. Their struggles gave birth to the Oil Workers
Trade Union (OWTU), more than 20,000-strong at the beginning of the
1980s. From 1970, Bishop and Radix established relations with the OWTU whose leaders were politically close to them and who had the same slogan
Another conception had been introduced into the NJM by Bernard Coard.
It was 'Marxist-Leninism' which imposes as law, in the words of the Constitution of the USSR since 1963, that 'the Communist Party is the force that leads and guides society... it is the nucleus of its political system, the 'compromise proposed to Bishop was inspired by such a conception:
he had to accept "the supremacy of the party over the state''
In a society in transition towards socialism, when disagreement arises between a vanguard party and the majority of the working masses, the party must bend, even if it thinks it is 100 per cent correct, even if it believes that the masses are making a grave mistake. That is without a doubt the golden rule that must be learned from the Grenadian catastrophe. It is the safeguard that the party must inscribe in letters of stone within its principles: do everything to convince, but never impose decisions by force and, equally, never settle differences in the party or in the popular movement by violence. The 'Marxist-Leninist' conception according to which the masses can be associated with the administration of the state but in the final analysis must accept the decision of the party, paved the way for the drama of October 1983. 'If the people do not accept it', said a Coard supporter,
One of our prime objectives of the revolutionary process as a government and party, has been and is to de-mystify economics and to recognize that economics is something which is perfectly capable of being grasped by all of our working people, that indeed to build an economy every Grenadian has to become an economist and has to become totally familiar with the fundamental principles in all the different workshops that we organise.
In the same interview, he also made these striking remarks:
fundamental one which is that whatever the task that confronts us, whether it be of a pure- All this led to the formation of the NJM and to its ideals and principles, including its most ly political character, an economic character or a defence of the country character-that the people must be totally involved. that the people must be told the facts, must be consulted about the shaping of the solutions and involved in their implementation. 27 as the NJM: 'Let the workers hold the reins of the state bodies and social organizations'
'then they must be made to accept it.'
Coard himself had declared in 1982:
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 81
'. It is interesting to note that
26
82 International Marxist Review
During the October 1983 crisis, the masses were barely (or falsely) informed of the facts. But it was decided to act against their will. One can only agree with Don Rojas when he writes that:
Perhaps the most fundamental lesson we have learned from the overthrow of the Grenada revolution is one that the magnificent Cuban revolution continues to teach us: that it is not possible to seize and hold onto power only in the name of the working people. The workers and farmers must be led to take power themselves.
Again it has to be made clear, because he quotes the example of the "magnificent Cuban revolution', that the workers and farmers do not truly possess power unless they can have the final say in all major national concerns. Unfortunately this is not totally the case in Cuba either. The text of the Cuban constitution contains an article identical to the one in the USSR constitution quoted above, and the Communist Party of Cuba, according to the statutes themselves, defines itself as 'the supreme organism of leadership of our society'
More specifically, the workers cannot have the final say in major decisions at the national level unless they have the chance to choose between several options. This is only possible under at least two conditions. The first condition is that candidates or delegates elected by popular power enjoy the right to constitute temporary groups or permanent parties, in order to elaborate different positions. They must have access to the means of mass distribution, be able to defend their platforms in front of the masses and have the right to submit them to public debate. This implies in a more general way 'unlimited political liberties for all individuals, groups, tendencies and parties' who, in practice, do not organise for the armed overthrow of popular power. Tomas Borge made this remark on the subject:
The existence of critically-minded people, opponents, dissidents, discontented and reactionary elements, gives the revolution life and strength. The confrontation of differences and polemics develop 'the ideological and political muscles' of the people. It is a permanent form of exercising, an antidote to paralysis and to passivity. 29
The second condition to fulfill in order for the workers to have real power of decision ... is that they have the right to be wrong. The construction of a new society is a long, arduous task. It is through their experiences, even if it entails making errors, that the masses can learn to manage a country. In other words, 'there is no other way to learn to avoid mistakes than to have at least the right to make them' ?. In this perspective, the role of the vanguard party is no less important. It must, permanently, fight against erroneous ideas, against other political currents and help the masses learn from their experiences.
It must be added that it was not only by books that the NJM was formed and deformed. It was also-and here the Cuban leaders also bear some responsibility—in the light of major world events. For example, on the basis of information transmitted by the agency TASS and taken by the Prensa Latina the NJM lined up with General Jaruzelski and denounced Solidarity, which organised 10 million workers. It did this apparently without any qualms. This position undoubtedly sprung back to mind when the NJM found
itself isolated against a population on strike and pouring into the streets.
Elsewhere, at the General Assembly on September 25, Austin, perhaps ingenuously, uttered something very revealing and appalling. Insisting on the necessity to reinforce the army, he said that his 'concern is great because the lesson of Poland showed that when the revolution was in danger and there was chaos in the party and society, it was only the Armed Forces explaining that the revolution was at a crossroads, that it could be overturned at any time, and that the counter-revolution was raising its head.
October 19 marked the culmination of the deadly dynamic that was set off a week earlier. That day, the intervention of the masses took on a different dimension from the preceding days. The schools students organized themselves and were the first to descend onto the streets of St. George's.
This demonstration grew as striking workers joined. They released Bishop and Jacqueline Creft. They recovered the place in the march where, already.
thousands of people waited for Bishop to speak. During this time Bishop, followed by several hundred people, went to Fort Rupert. Without doubt he wanted to take some time for reflection, to assess the situation with his friends from whom he had been separated for a week, and to guarantee his security. To this end, some were to be armed. Suddenly, around 1 a.m., armoured cars surged at the entrance to the fort. After a brief exchange of gunfire with some armed civilians, they began to fire on the crowd, as well as on the building where Bishop and several dozen others were. The shooting killed and wounded many. Maurice Bishop, Jacqueline Creft,
Unison Whiteman, Fitzory Bain and the minister Norris Bain (who was not an NJM member) and three of their friends were then arrested and led
They were executed soon after. Trade union leader and former PB member
Vincent Noel was wounded in the gunfire and finished off later. The question which is generally posed about this tragedy is: who gave the order to fire? Was it an individual decision? Was it the CC that took the decision to storm the fort and/or to execute Bishop and his companions?
Hopefully one day an inquest will be possible under suitable and fair conditions-contrary to the trial that was held-and produce a definitive answer. But in any case, just as important a question is posed: does not the majority of the CC bear the historic responsibility for what happened,
The answer is obviously yes. For whatever were the CC's exact decisions concerning Bishop's fate during the preceding days, whether Coard did or did not wish to leave the country the morning of October 19 as he declared in the tribunal, one thing is certain: having previously decided not that was able to rescue the situation'.
The bloody climax into the interior court of the fort.
whether or not it gave the orders on October 19?
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 83
'. And then the CC swallowed the poison,
84 International Marxist Review to give way to the wishes of the masses, which constituted a veritable betrayal of the revolution, the CC had taken the unpardonable risk of going towards violent confrontation, consciously or otherwise. To prevent this treason from transforming itself into murder, the CC would have had to do a complete about-face on October 19, resign from its functions, and return the power to the masses in the streets. Obviously they were hardly prepared to take such a decision. But given what was going on the morning of October 19, was there not even one leader tempted to make such a proposal? The Coard leadership against the people To conclude, this is what Merle Hodge makes of the crisis:
It is clear now that in the Grenadian revolution, two parallel processes were taking place all along, that these eventually confronted each other, and the one swallowed up the other:
1. The development of a people's revolution, carried forward by the creative energy of the mass of the people, the welling up of the wisdom they have carried within them for centuries, the voluntary effort of the people stimulated and motivated by the type of leadership practised by Maurice Bishop and the NJM core group that was eliminated along with him
2. The slow, steady, calculated hijacking of this process by elements who placed theory above people, who had no real contact with the people, and who in the end were rejected by the people in no uncertain terms-the Coard faction.
Richard Hart does not say a single word about the five days between the execution and the invasion. Moreover, what happened then would be very enlightening for those who, despite everything, still think that Coard and his followers can be considered 'revolutionaries' and 'communists' Whatever their exact role on October 19, the new leaders then went on to take their monstrous logic to its conclusion.
Knowing that their power rested only at gunpoint, they set up a Revolutionary Military Council, composed of 16 members. Almost half of them were officers who had participated in the armed conflict at Fort Rupert and some, quite probably, in the executions that followed. A ceremony was to have been organised to honour the military who took part in the October 19 events. For on that day, a declaration to the army said history was made again' •..because of the prompt action of the reserve Force, guided by the Central Committee of the NJM-these dismayers of the masses were crushed. The timely move of our Motorized Units dealt a devastating blow to these criminals, those opportunist elements who did not want to see socialism built in our country and who were not interested in seeing the masses benefit more and more.
The same day, General Austin announced to the population:
Let it be clearly understood that the revolutionary armed forces will govern with absolute strictness. Anyone who seeks to demonstrate or disturb the peace will be shot. An all-day and all-night curfew will be established for the next four days, from now until next Monday at 6 o'clock. No one is to leave their house. Anyone violating this curfew will be shot on sight. 32
Swept up in an infernal dialectic, Coard's followers had put Bishop under
house-arrest. One week later, the entire population was put under housearrest. They could risk their lives by going to draw water, to the toilet, or to feed the animals! The Grenadian people were understandably pro-
It was obvious that the United States would take advantage of the unexpected opportunity to invade Grenada. The Revolutionary Military Council tried to woo imperialism. But it was only at the last minute that it tried to mobilize the population. Because the only chance, however minimal, to save the situation would have been to lift the curfew, abandon power, and hand it over to the mass organizations, the only ones, perhaps still in a position to mobilise the militias. It was stubborn to the end, and lifted the curfew on the said day only when it was informed of the imminent invasion. It is particularly significant that up to the final day, those in power were still busy discrediting Bishop and that, a few hours before the invasion, the military were still seeking to arrest Don Rojas. Thus was perpetrated a new betrayal of the Grenadian revolution.
When on Tuesday, October 25, 5.30 a.m., the radio announced that the
American helicopters were attacking the country and that 'all Grenadians are asked to reach their militia centres immediately, the revolution was
If he says nothing about what really happened after October 19, Hart raises a question to which, in his opinion 'insufficient consideration has been given': what would have happened if Bishop had been victorious on October
19? His exact words are 'What would have happened if Bishop had succeeded in rousing the masses against the Central Committee and the party, and had established personal control?' This is not far from the communique to the army on the afternoon of October 19 which claimed that: 'Maurice
Bishop openly stated that he was going to build a new Party and a new
Army-to defend the interests of the bourgeoisie, and 'Maurice Bishop,
Unison Whiteman and Vincent Noel' were 'preparing to murder all Party
Here ther is what Richard Hart thinks would have happened if Maurice
Without the support of the party he would have had to rely heavily on the support of petty bourgeois elements. Without a Marxist-Leninist party to guide and lead the Revolution what orientation would it have taken? However sincerely Bishop may have believed that the survival of the Revolution depended on his maintaining his position as sole top leader, would it not, without the guidance and direction of a Marxist-Leninist Party, have lost foundly traumatised by this nightmare.
The USA seizes its chance already dead comrades, Officers and Chiefs that they held.'
A false balance sheet
Bishop had prevailed:
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 85
its working class socialist orientation? Did Bishop take this problem into account when
This analysis is interesting in more ways than one. First it reveals the essence of Hart's thought: the CC ought to have avoided getting to that point, but the action led by the army on 19 October was completely legitimate because the victory of Bishop would have meant the destruction of the revolution. He also provides us with valuable clues to Coard's frame of thought, which he shares, and which led him into the abyss. It bears witness to a vision turned caricature of the messianic role of the 'Marxist-Leninist' party, this veritable incarnation of a mythical proletariat. It is thus easier to understand why Hart did not write a single line on the reactions of the real working class after Bishop's internment. If he did not talk about the
October 19 strikes, it is because the working class had transformed itself
Hart's analysis refers elsewhere to the 'non-capitalist road to development', under his slightly more sophisticated version than that of the countries of the class nature of the states is not well-defined and can waver following the relationship of forces between the classes and the state of their relations orientation' to a 'capitalist orientation' without the fundamental overthrows as a prerequisite. The conclusion is clear: a few modifications at the head of these countries is enough to change the adopted 'road'. Hence the need for a truly 'Marxist-Leninist' party, monolithic, extremely vigilant, in order to keep things under control. For with the slightest breeze the country risks straying adrift. The NJM subscribed to this theory. And its internal debates were full of allusions to Somalia and Egypt which went from a 'socialist' orientation to a 'capitalist' one (which, in reality, they had never left!). These examples were brandished to show the threats weighing on Grenada.
To this day, this form of theory has furnished communist parties with arguments to justify opportunist attitudes towards regimes which are often no more than neo-colonialist military dictatorships, which speak of
"socialism' and have relations with the USSR, especially on the economic level. After a while, these countries seem to consider it more advantageous to turn to the USA! In the case of Grenada, these ideas provided the theoretical basis for the unleashing of the counter-revolution. It is moreover interesting to note that in a speech-given, admittedly, in the name of the
CC-Bishop, while speaking on behalf of the non-capitalist road to development, presented an unambiguous analysis of the class nature of the Grenadian state and was infinitely closer to the Leninist theory of the state. He
From the start, from the very first second of the Grenada Revolution (let us say 4.30 a.m.
86 International Marxist Review he decided to defy and, if necessary, destroy the party? 33 into the petty bourgeoisie!
The non-capitalist road to development
'socialist orientation' with the 'socialist world' stated that:
. According to this theory, there are countries where
'. These countries can thus move from a 'socialist
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 87 on March 13th 1979) from the very first second of the Grenada Revolution, what was established was a dictatorship of the entire working people. 34
He explains the nature of the Grenadian state, the fact that the toiling masses possessed the power of constraint which allowed elements of the bourgeoisie to exist in the government, and necessary alliances to be formed with upper levels of the petty bourgeoisie and part of the bourgeoisie, especially on the economic level.
On the economic front. ty must be very little 36Ou can have a lot of flexibility; on the political front the flexibili-
At the core of Hart's analysis is the very precise concept that Bishop and his followers, especially the future founders of the Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement (which he criticises sharply at the end of his text without ever naming them) were never really true 'Marxist-Leninists' but basically opportunists who could not inspire confidence.
The existence of 'right opportunist' elements in the CC was denounced a number of times during the crisis in the NJM. Coard was very clear on this when he declared at the 17 September CC meeting (from which the 'right-opportunist' elements were absent) that "two tendencies operated within the CC, a revolutionary democratic petty bourgeois tendency and a Marxist-Leninist tendency' and that 'the comrade leader wavered between the two tendencies' Historical differences surface again There is a long history behind the idea that Bishop and his comrades were basically incapable of breaking with the bourgeoisie and leading the revolution to a proletarian conclusion. It came up during the major strikes of 1974, which paralysed Grenada. At that time a group of young ultra-left school students reproached the NJM leadership for having capitulated to the bourgeoise, of having opportunistically retused to to seize power. The NJM was in tact prepared for it, but they renounced it, estimating, for good reason, that the conditions were not yet ripe. During a stay in Grenada in 1974, Coard who taught abroad until 1976, made contact with some of them and formed a Marxist-Leninist study group called OREL (Organization for Revolution Education and Liberation). In its bulletin Spark OREL denounced the NJM leadership as petty bourgeois. In 1977 OREL, which entered the NJM, was termed a 'party within a party' and summoned to disband. Among the first participants of OREL were Liam James, Ewart Layne, Leon Cornwall, Chris Stroud, Bazil Gahagan, Nazim Bruke and Chalkie Ventour. Besides the last two, one of whom talked of the "Afghan solution', and the other drew up the Revolutionary Military Council's economic plan, as Coard's right-hand man, all occupied key posts in the revolutionary army and were named members of the Revolutionary Military Council.
Bishop had a much deeper understanding of Grenadian society than did the former members of OREL, and a much more developed tactical sense.
This was probably accompanied by a certain empiricism. But basically he had a great disdain for the Grenadian bourgeoisie as a parasitic class that concentrated its activities in commerce and was incapable of developing the reason we can form the alliance with them is because of their own low level of class consciousness. Therefore, they don't really fully understand what it is we are doing. It comes over in a million things they say from time to time. They are not really convinced they are still hoping that what we are building is not socialism-whatever that means. 36
Bishop was very clear about the role of the working class in the revolution, and this conception was deeply-rooted in him. A symbol of his attachment to the working class was the great portrait of the trade unionist Buzz Butler
(who was made a 'national hero') which decorated a room in his house.
So our message today comrades, to all our workers in our island and throughout the Carribbean is: in the spirit of Butler, unionize! Mobilize! Educate! Democratize! Dynamize the trade union movement throughout our region! Let the spirit of Butler fire and inspire us! Let us seek to emulate his cause and dedication to the most sacred commitment of
Ve in Grenada pledge to continue to put our trade union movement at the centre o the process in our country to link all our workers in an organised relationship with democratic structures and practices, and so pump with ever-increasing vigour the vibrant blood that
1. Translated from the French version of an article by Maria Carpio Nicolle published by
2. Richard Hart, a veteran of the Jamaican workers movement, was named "attorney-general"
of the Grenadian government in 1982 after having spent many years in Britain.
5. From a speech by Maurice Bishop to Hunter College, 5 June 1983.
'Interview with Don Rojas' by Pierre Rousset in Croissance de jeunes nations, September
11. Speech by Maurice Bishop to the Central Committee of the NJM.
13. Translated from the French translation of an article which appeared in the magazine An-
14. 'Interview with George Louison', Forward Ever. London. Reprinted in IP. 16 April 1984.
88 International Marxist Review productive activity. Beyond that, he said that:
Bishop's conception of the working class runs through all the organs of our Revolution.'
Barricada (19 October 1984).
3. In nobody's backyard (London: Zed Press, 1984).
6. Ibid
7. From the NJM Manifesto.
1984
10. From an article in IP, 26 December 1983.
12. Ibid tilla, December 1983.
15. Ibid
16. Ibid
This is what he said in one of his finest speeches:
I-the emancipation and freedom of our working people
Notes
9. From an article in Intercontinental Press (IP), 4 March 1985.
18. The real story of October 1983, Maurice Bishop and Patriotic Martyrs of October 1983
23. From an article in Forward Ever, reprinted in IP, 16 April 1984.
25. From a New Jewel Movement document on state power, Caribbean Dialogue (Port of
26. To construct from morning. Making the people's budget in Grenada (Fedon Publishers:
28. 'Open letter to the CC", by Don Rojas, republished in IP, 1 April 1985.
29. 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Socialist Democracy". From Resolutions of the Twelfth
World Congress of the Fourth International, reprinted in a special issue of International
33. Introduction to In nobody's backvard, (London: Zed Press, 1984).
34. 'The line of march', speech given by Maurice Bishop to NJM members in September 1983.
37. In the spirit of Butler-trade unionism in free Grenada, (Fedon Publishers: Grenada 1982).
17. Ibid.
Foundation. p.25.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
Viewpoint, 1985.
36. Ibid.
24. From an interview in Caribbean Review.
Spain: June/July 1976.)
30. From an article in IP, March 4 1985.
31. From a statement by Hudson Austin, 19 October 1983.
Three years after: the lessons of Grenada 89
MICHAEL LÖWY