The course of the revolution
It is in the light of this back-to-thewall resistance, in the tiny pocket handkerchief of an island that is Grenada, that of the imperialist governallies of Reagan, appears most
The clearest thing about this US intervention in Grenada now that the smoke of the violates the fighting has cleared a bit is that none of the justifications Reagan gave for it hold sovereignty of Grenada they discreetly look the other way, and wipe their feet the mip of junta thate methe only political statement it was able to make on the principles of 'international law'.
Francois Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, before the invasion indicated a clear rightward direction:
"The RMC (Revolutionary Military Council) believes that the policy of a mixed
Bettino Craxi, Helmut Kohl and company have swallowed and digested the Amereconomy, with state, cooperative and private sectors, is the correct one to ensure
However, the RMC also analyzed that in order ican fait accompli without too much to ensure the most rapid development of the tourism industry and also manufacturing, there is need to encourage much more positively the role of private investment,
The prize for disgrace undoubtedly goes to the social democratic parties, who
The fact of the matter, moreover, is that the RMC probably would not have surhave contented themselves with protests, even though the NJM is a memas quickly as it did to prevent the Grenadian ber of their so-called Socialist Internapeople from solving their own problems and assuring the continuity of the revotional. The Social Democratic prime minister of Portugal, Mario Soares, for his
The scope of the US intervention makes a joke of the claim that it was intended part has gone as far as to support the im-
Nor were the RMC acolytes of the Cubans. That was shown by the immediate perialist action to 'restore harmony in the
As for the French and Italian
The Cuban statement on October 27 gave what has been shown to be an accurate governments, one sees that it would be description of the political situation inside the country, which made effective resisdifficult for them to raise their voices, tance to the US expeditionary force impossible:
given that they are side by side with the
"The political situation inside Grenada in connection with the split in the people
USA in Lebanon, (and in Chad for France)
after the events that led to the death of Bishop and the other leaders considerably and that they are demanding in loud weakened the country's defense potential.
voices the deployment of US missiles
Grenadian revolutionists. In this light, the present military and political conditions are extremely bad for organizing determined and effective resistance to the interven-
On its side the Soviet Union has contionist forces, which is impossible without the participation of the people. It is essential to consider how to achieve reconciliation with the people."
fined itself to simple formal
The Cuban statement said that these points were made to the new rulers by which are not of the nature to reassure
Cuba or Nicaragua about the firmness of
Nonetheless, the Grenadian revolution suffered a disastrous defeat, which the imits support in a similar situation.
perialists will try to exploit politically to strike new blows at the Central American
At the level of the bourgeois governments in Latin America, the strongest
The strength of the Grenadian revolution was political; its example and the percondemnations have come from counspectives it offered for the oppressed Black people of the Caribbean and the ghettos
Mexico, which in the conin Britain and the US. That was the only conceivable threat it represented to the US text of their own economic crises, fear and the regimes that preside over hopeless poverty and demoralization in other Black the effects that the US escalation may
If it had not been for the coup and the murder of Bishop and the other experhave in awakening and sharpening the ienced leaders of the New Jewel Movement, the US would have paid an incalculable anti-imperialist sentiment of the Latin aggression in Grenada has added another blot to the ugly face of imperialism, after the British intervention in the Malvinas, and the starvanot a group of "left" extremists.
Grenada's most rapid development.
including both local and foreign investors."
The US most likely intervened to rescue some American students.
condemnation of the coup by Havana.
political cost for the intervention.
This is the result of serious errors by
International Viewpoint 14 November 1983
Revolutionists everywhere, and especially in the Caribbean, will study these errors. Other articles in this issue of IV offer some elements for beginning to under-
The fundamental weakness of the imperialists is that there is no way they can offer any lasting hope to the Caribbean peoples, when hundreds of millions of people in the countries dominated by imperialism are sinking into poverty and desperation.
That weakness cannot be overcome by military force.
of what the Grenadian revolution achieved will outlast its defeat and ultimately
It assures that the example and by a people's
The number of ministers and their wages were reduced, and these earnings
However, the 1980 budget exempted a third of the workers from public health network was exprove more powerful than any interventionist force. Vincent KERMEL
On March 13, 1979, taking advantage of the absence of the dictator, Eric Gairy, who was on a trip to the U.S., about fifty New Jewel Movement (1) activists seized the radio station and a barracks and called for the overthrow of the dictatorship
On the same day, about a thousand workers took part in a general strike and several hundred others seized the leading figures in the Gairy regime and a number
On January 21, during a demonstration, the police murdered Rupert Bishop, Maurice Bishop's father. The right to strike was suspended for public service employees and restrictions were put on freedom of the press. coincided with the granting of independence to Grenada on February 1, 1974.
In December 1976, the New Jewel Movement concluded an alliance, which lasted no longer than the elections, with bourgeois opposition formations.
tended to cover the entire population (the percentage of doctors per capita increased from 1 per 4,000 inhabitants to
The setting up of a National Office of Import-Export Control made it possible, despite the bourgeois dominance of this sector, to cut the price basic necessities (rice, sugar, and
UNEMPLOYMENT CUT BY MORE THAN TWO THIRDS
In April 1982, a survey showed that the rate of unemployment had dropped from 49 percent to 14.2 percent.
of police stations.
Finding themselves isolated in the led in 1979 by comparison with previous country, and taken by surprise by the rapidity of the action, the repressive forces - about 500 men - were paralyzed. The total human cost of the revolution was thus the life of one policeman. On March 20, 1979, 20,000 people, one out of every five people on the island, celebrated the overthrow of the dictatorship to shouts of "Freedom has
Gairy is gone with the Flying Saucers." (2)
the involvement of the people in the insurrection itself was very limited, the seizure of power by the New Jewel Movement marked the culmination several years of mass mobilizations against the dictatorship.
Gairy was named prime minister in 1967 by the British colonialist authorities. The former trade-unionist's credibility with the people waned rapidly and he became a puppet of Britain.
At the same time, the radicalization of the youth, which represents half the population, gave rise to several opposition movements. In March 1973, the bulk of the opposition fused into the New Jewel
Some of the members were
Marxists, others were inspired by the
Black movement in the United States.
But the example of the Cuban revolution was the predominant influence.
In 1973-74, the mobilizations focused on the question of independence.
In May 1973, the New Jewel Movement organized a rally of 10,000 persons demanding the resignation of Eric Gairy and a voice for the workers in the process of setting up an independent government on the island.
November 18, 1973,
Sunday," six leaders of the New Jewel
Movement were arrested and beaten up
"Mongoose Gang," the repressive body Gairy set up in 1967. The political isolation of the dictatorship grew.
ments of the local bourgeoisie went into opposition and joined
Jewel Movement in calling a strike in
January 1974.
International Viewpoint 14 November 1983
Nonetheless, by fraud and repression Gairy managed to win the elections with a bare 340 vote majority. Members of the New Jewel Movement headed an impotent parliamentary opposition. But the New Jewel Movement emerged more and more as the sole alternative to the dietatorship.
THE LEGACY OF COLONIALISM
AND THE GAINS OF THE REVOLUTION
After the formation of the People's Revolutionary Government (PRG), the Grenadian revolution had to confront an onerous economic and social heritage. Some 40 percent of the population were illiterate (70 percent of the women), 50 percent were unemployed, 60 percent lived in houses without running water. The median per capita income was only a few hundred dollars a year. percent of the exports were to Europe (cacao, nutmeg, and bananas), and about of the food imports came from Europe. Industry was pathetically undeveloped (of the 120 surveyed in 1977, half employed less than five persons. the nature of the Grenadian economy, the extent of its underdevelopment and its dependence on imperialism, the economic and social results obtained during the four and half years of the revolutionary process are far from inconsid-
La mass campaign illiteracy was cut down to 2 percent of the adult wealth amassed by
Eric Gairy and his ministers was confiscated. In all, 40 percent of the farms and plantations of over 100 acres (52 hectares), amounting to a third of the land under cultivation, was in the hands of the state and had been transformed into collective farms. (3) The repressive laws restricting freedom of the press were abolished.
army was dissolved. And the Mongoose
Gang was disarmed and replaced by the
People's Revolutionary Army made up of
The state investment program was doubyears, and this trend continued. In 1982, it was twelve times what it was in the last year of the dictatorship.
In 1982, inflation was kept to 7 percent, while wages rose by 10 percent. Overall, production increased, both in the state and private sectors. Specific legal rules were adopted to protect women against sexist discrimination.
"equal pay for equal work" provision and the right to maternity
Under the impetus of the New Jewel Movement and the government, there was a considerable development of mass mobilization, and the democratic rights of the masses were extended. unions were formed to replace the old unions that had been close to Gairy. A law was adopted requiring employers to recognize any union that could show that it had the support of 51 percent of the
The rate of unionization rose from 30 percent in 1979 to 90 percent. people take the reins," a process of mass Under the slogan "let the working organization was launched, which rise to revolutionary youth and women's organizations. Some 25,000 people came out for the rally commemorating the first anniversary of the overthrow of the dictatorship in 1980, showing the extent of the mass mobilization that there was on this small island.
government took bold initiatives to encourage the for Social We Jee, Mucemen, and berationt The New Jewel Movement (the movement
Whiteman's Jewel and the Movement of Assem-
Bishop and KenA fan of "Unidentified Flying Objects," was at a conference on this question in the U.S. when his dictatorship was over-
For this data, see Quatrime Internationale, No 4, April-June 1981.
Bishop in his speecs in New Goek in June 1982.
Intercontinental Press of November
population to participate in public af-
This included organizing a broad the budget and plan for In January 1982, a national conference was held on this question.
In June of the same year, a conference including hundreds of delegates and unemployed youth was conducted on the question of under-employment. The govcreate 6,000 jobs every three years.
A special ministry
Ministry of National Mobilization promote the development of organs for people's participation
In the spring of 1981, six district councils were formed to conduct discussions, in the presence of the ministers concerned, of the government's proposals and the complaints of the population.
district councils were then divided into thirty zonal councils, and then
"minizone"
Jewel Movement also proposed setting up bodies were preparation for the election, coordinating bodies"
according to a plan by the Ministry of
Mobilization, of representative structures in the villages, which would then elect delegates from their ranks to a district assembly, which in turn would elect representatives to a national assembly.
These structures were to be institutionalized by the new constitution that was being drawn up.
THE NEW CONSTITUTION June, a commission of five members was formed to produce a first draft on the basis of the following principles:
"People's democracy" and the creation of promote ongoing involvement by the people;" recognition of the government's efforts to transform
Grenada, to provide a better standard of the workers, to build a just society, and involve the people in decimaking; guarantees democratic rights; public accounting by all officials and the right of recall for the population.
The chairperson of this commission people of Grenada have regarded development of the provement of the standard of living, the development of education and employment, the extension of the people's orand improvement of the nation's defense as taking priority over constitutional come, however, to begin to carry the process of institutionalization to a higher level and to start work on a new con-
"The Grenadian revolution has anticipated the new constitution by achieving a high degree of participatory democracy." (6)
All of these gains of the Grenadian revolution are now being wiped out by the imperialist intervention. ialism, like its local allies that keep their peoples in poverty and under the boot of repression in the other Caribbean islands,
Grenadians in mass meeting (DR)
have nothing to offer to the Grenadian the bayonets of their invading forces.
No government emerging from this imperialist intervention can guarantee to the Grenadian masses the sort of social rights and democratic gains they achieved over the four and a half years of the revo-
The function of such a government will rather be to destroy these gains.
the revolution was experiencing difficulties. There were many problems, and they were greatly aggrathe imperialist blockade that
Washington clamped down right from
March 13, 1979. The weakness of the island's economic potential, the weight of imperialist domination, the maintenance of the bourgeoisie's economie power in and tourism, and - to some extent - in agriculture were obstacles on the road to genuine economic and political independence.
While it was excluded from political power in effect, most of the bourgeoisie lined up with Maurice Bishop's govern-
But it nonetheless constituted a social and economic base for any capital-
The social structure of Grenada itself, which has the highest percentage of independent peasant proprietors in the region, gives the petty bourgeoisie considerable weight. The industrial proletariat is very weak. In 1977, the biggest manufacturing enterprise, a brewery, employed 76 people. Between 1969 the number of industrial workers dropped from 2,473 to a few hundred, with the largest concentration on the docks.
### IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION against Grenada - the weakest link in the provocations revolutionary chain in Central America and the Caribbean - began almost imafter the New Jewel Move-
The U.S. ambassador's pressure to get the PRG to break relations with Cuba were followed up by covert actions and terrorist attacks, such as the one in June 1980 aimed at the representatives of the New Jewel Movement at a public rally. sented his Caribbean February 1982, when he prewhich Grenada was excluded - Ronald Reagan complained about "the growing predominance of the totalitarian left in
Grenada and Nicaragua."
In early 1983, the Washington Post revealed the existence of a CIA plan put into practice during the summer of 1981 to "create economic problems for Grenada in the hope of undermining the political control of Prime Minister Maurice
Bishop."
In the summer of 1982, Reagan said:
"Grenada bears the Soviet and Cuban stamp, which gives grounds for expecting it will try to spread this virus among its neighbors."
Finally, in March 1983, the American president said: "It's not nutmeg that is at stake in the Caribbean and in Central
America, it is the national security of the
United States."
From this point on, there could be no doubt about the imperialist intention to intervene militarily in Grenada. They were just waiting for the opportunity to do so at the least political and human cost. In fact, Maurice Bishop was quite right when he said on March 13, right after Reagan's remarks:
"This is about as close as you can come to declaring war without actually declaring it....The imperialists tried to build up a propaganda operation in Grenada. They tried to carry out their economic aggression. In both cases, our people dealt them a severe setback. So, now they have to resort to armed aggres-
In denouncing the entry of former Somocistas into Nicaragua, the Central Committee of the New Jewel Movement raised a stirring alarm:
"Reagan is invading Nicaragua. ada is his next objective. Join the militia
Unfortunately, the events in midOctober and their tragic outcome - the murder of Maurice Bishop historic leaders of the New Jewel Movement by officers of the People's Army -weakened the revolution and disoriented the Grenadian movements. way was opened for the imperialists to send in 5,000 Marines to occupy the is-
Quoted by Epices ("'Spice"), the paper of the French Comite de solidarite avec le peuple de Grenada, September 1983 (c/o J. M. Anneavenue Pierre-Brossolette, Malakoff, France). No 149, April 9, 1983. No 146, March 28, 1983 and International Viewpoint 14 November 1983
GRENADA -
Over the weekend, contradictory rumors were spread via the international
Coard news agencies.
was supposed to have taken power in the country.
This
To the was not confirmed in any way.
The