Foreign troops out of Grenada!
tion of Maurice Bishop's revolutionary government as a serious threat, despite the small size of Grenada. This hostility, which was immediately and continually expressed by destabilisation operations,
Hands off gains of
Grenadian masses !
was basically due to the following factors:
The changes taking place in Grenada were likely to favour the extension of the revolutionary process to other Caribbean islands and neighbouring countries in a period of sometimes explosive in-
Resolution of the UNITED SECRETARIAT of the FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, May 10-14, 1984 The seizure of power by the New Jewel Movement (NJM) on March 12, 1979, started to destroy the semicolonial bourgeois state in Grenada which is located in the Caribbean, a strategically for American imperialism. Gairy's small army and police force were gressed constantly towards a situation in which only the nominal ex-governor survived, completely stripped of political
A revolutionary regime was set up and a process of social revolution was
The forms and rhythm of these revolutionary transformations were largely determined by the objective conditions
Extreme dependence on imperial-
- Small and extreme lack of re-
Great weakness of the proletariat (only a few thousand stable industrial workers) side by side with a large layer of small peasants;
A relatively large layer of semiproletarian layers (unemployed, marginal temporary/short-term workers, etc.).
Despite these very unfavourable starting conditions, the relatively weak political organisation of the population at the beginning, and the continuing destabilisation efforts of imperialism and its allies in Grenada and the region, the revolutionary regime in the space of a few years was able to bring about a series of impressive gains for the toiling masses:
Chronic unemployment was radically reduced from 50% of the workforce (and 70% of the women) to 12%, while in the rest of the Caribbean the basic tendency is in the opposite direction;
Over three consecutive years an impressive annual rate of growth of nearly 4% was achieved (3% in 1980, 3% in 1981 and 5.5% in 1982), the supply of running water was increased by 100%, an effort was made to begin to develop agricultural cooperatives and a start was made in planning the economy;
An important agrarian reform was A vast education campaign meant the number of illiterates fell the population, the percentage of schoolage children benefitting from secondary education went up from 11% to 36% and a plan was drawn up for achieving universal secondary education before the end of International Viewpoint 4 June 1984
- The poorest 30% of the population were exempted from taxes;
housing field renovation of some 18,000 houses, affecting nearly three quarters of the entire population;
Introduction, with the revolutionary help of Cuba, of a free health service for the whole population accompanied by a 100% rise in the number of doctors.
In addition to this economic and social progress, there were similarly impressive advances in democratic rights for the
Mass trade unionisation of agriworkers, trade-union membership tripled to 90% of all wage earners on the island;
structures with regular general meetings, election of leaders, opening of trade unions' accounts to any member wishing to consult them;
Rapid growth of women's and youth mass organisations which quadrupled in membership and the setting up of a small peasants organisation;
—Setting up of embryonic organs of mass self-organisation (zonal councils and workers parish councils) power to submit the action of ministers, high-ranking civil servants and directors to their control and disapproval. They also discussed proposed legislation and the national budget before it was adopt-
The Bishop team had a project of transforming these councils into genuine organs of political power;
Building people's militia. •
The rhythm adopted for the collective appropriation of the means of production was relatively slow and the priority in economic given to the development of tourism by the building of a modern airport. was fundamentally due to the backward objective conditions of the country and not to weaknesses or errors of the revolutionary leadership. stances, no alternative orientation would have led to better results.
Therefore, these conditions weighed heavily on the economic choices made by the revolutionary leadership as well as on the possibility of establishing a democracy based on councils. proletarian tradition worked in the same
2. Imperialism considered the formastability due to the economic crisis (Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Surinam, etc.)
- The risk of a Grenada-NicaraguaCuba axis and the constitution of an international force of attraction for the masses in this region of the world;
that Maurice government was the first revolutionary government established in a black Englishimperialism thought could well stimulate a process of radicalisation in other parts of the world
America, Great Britain, Black
Consequently, imperialism used a dual counter-revolutionary tactic: intervention by US imperialism, allied with some of its puppet regimes in the
More underhand pressure, accompanied by limited aid granted under political pressure, from European imperialists to try to progressively Maurice Bishop's revolutionary govern-
The military intervention of US imperialism and its puppets represents the destruction of the state created after the March 1979 victory (councils, people's army, militia, administration) return to colonial juridical institutions Therefore, it is the victory of a social counter-revolution. It is a grave defeat inflicted not only on the Grenadian masses but on the overall revolutionary process in the Caribbean and the neighbouring countries of the region. initial consequences of this defeat are already making themselves felt - by the tionary regime in Jamaica, by the break
Bouterse's regime Surinam and by the creation of a small counter-revolutionary 'relay' army in the English-speaking Caribbean around the US intervention forces.
However, the defeat of the Grenadian revolution is not a crushing military dictatorship type of defeat. and its puppets are having difficulty in eliminating all the gains of the masses won between March 1979 and October 1983. Centres for mass resistance have been set up. The New Jewel Movement maintains a certain continuity around the initiative of a few survivors of the Bishop leadership. US imperialism is obliged to "moderate' repression due to the disapproval its military operation has run internationally and even in the Furthermore, the test of strength underway between the revolu-
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DOCUMENT.
Member of the People's Revolutionary Army under US 'escort' (DR) tion and the counter-revolution in Central a) Hefty wage increases were granted America, and the ongoing mass struggles for the army (among civil servants simand mass explosions Eke the one that ilar were proposed for party occurred at the end of April 1984 in Santo Domingo, puts real limits today on The militia began to be disarmed. the effects of US imperialism's counter- It was decided to act against popular feeling expressed massively in the de-
It must be noted that this imperialist mand for the release of Maurice Bishop military intervention did not lead to a (in the council meetings, petitions in the military confrontation with all the anti- workplaces, strikes, demonstrations, etc.) imperialist forces - both for the reasons There was firing on the big Ocoutlined by Fidel Castro as well as for tober 19 mass demonstration. more profound objective reasons. assassination of would be irresponsible to reproach the Maurice Bishop and his closest collaborCuban leadership for this. ators on the orders of the Coard faction
Undoubtedly, the risk of having to of the Central Committee and party. The stand up alone to US military might well soldiers were only acting on these orders. influence the strategy of many revolu- The declaration of a state of emertionary organisations in the immediate gency and the imposition of a curfew future. The way out of this impasse is which in practice meant the neutralisathe extension of the revolutionary pro- tion of the councils and militia. cess in the region based on the ripening of internal revolutionary crises in each All this went in the direction of a country. growing militarisation of the country.
These measures profoundly traumatised
4. The victory of the social counter- and demobilised the Grenadian masses revolution in Grenada, unleashed by the and meant they were incapable of remilitary intervention of US imperialism, sponding vigorously to imperialist was facilitated in a decisive way by the gression. It even resulted in at least a seizure of power by the Coard faction of fraction of the masses seeing this aggresthe NJM in October 1983, which over- sion as a lesser evil compared to the fear threw Maurice Bishop's revolutionary of an increasingly authoritarian regime government. The Coard faction which installed by the Coard faction. carried out this political counter-revolu- It is important to correctly charactertion was an authoritarian and substi- ize this faction as a Stalinoid one in ortutionist faction of a Stalinist type, der to understand why, even totally whose bureaucratic orientation appeared isolated from the masses, it nevertheless clearly in the immediate measures which opposed the imperialist invasion, had its totally removed the toiling masses' pos- army fight the invaders and is today subsibility of exerting political power: ject to imperialist repression. 24
We must denounce that repression and these abuses of the reactionary regime in
Grenada while demanding that Coard and company answer for their crimes before a people's tribunal.
5. The fact that the Coard faction was able to develop inside the NJM, was able to win the majority of the Central
Committee and take over the leadership reflects the type of social-economic pressures any ruling revolutionary organisation is subject to in a backward country.
It also shows the pernicious influence that the Soviet bureaucracy can exert either through its direct intervention or through its objective weight, its example and its ideological influence over political currents without great experience.
The opposition of the Coard faction to the Bishop group cannot be fundamentally explained by Coard's personal de.
fects, his arrogance, personalisation of power or by intrigues, the use of a
"secret faction', 'cliquist mentality"
not to speak of the hypothesis of manipulation by imperialism and the manoeuvres of 'enemy agents'. This split reflected, given the above-mentioned pressures, two diametrically different conceptions of b relations between the party and the state, between the leadership of the party and g the masses, between the party and the masses, two different conceptions of the internal structure of the party itself.
These different conceptions reflected, in a historical sense, even if only embryonically, divergent social interests, those of the proletarian masses on the one hand and those of an incipient bureaucracy on the other hand.
Furthermore, the conflict between the Coard and Bishop groups was not a recent phenomenon.
Coard was a member of the Jamaican Workers Partv, a hyper-Stalinist group, and was a faithte ful supporter of it in the 1970s when he set up the OREL. Later OREL was distl solved into the
New Jewel Moveruent
W but remained a current with another political project.
The survivors of the Bishop tendency ti are themselves today conscious of the necessity to examine the causes of the
Grenadian revolution's defeat. They say it is a subject for discussion and debate that will last for years.
The fact that they approved the rule whereby differences that emerged (which had been the case for at leat the final year) inside the Central Committee should not be presented to the party rank and file nor to the masses, undoubtedly weakened the Bishop group and facilitated the bureaucratic faction's victory.
cl
In a revolution like the one which had
B developed in Grenada, it was difficult the first stage, for obvious obduring jective reasons, to organise the majority of the working people in their workplaces and into bodies of polticial power
The NJM itindependent of the party.
self only had a few dozen members. The seizure of power had not, strictly speakte re ing, been preceded by a mass movement bringing about through its actions a g
International Viewpoint 4 June 1984
AROUND THE WORLD dynamic of control and self-organisation, although it immediately led to an impressive mass mobilisation, mass activity and mass organisation under the impulse of the revolutionary government.
Under the circumstances, an immediate separation of party and state bodies, given the extreme narrowness of cadre, was further very difficult. In these conditions, the NJM as a whole was bound to undergo, to varying degrees, substitutionist pressures to carry forward the revolu- Luxembourg Fourth Interrationalicts tionary process. The conflict which broke out inside the NJM expressed a launch election campaign qualitative differentiation in the response to be given to such social and political
So, the tragic experience of the Grenadian revolution confirms the vital importance for the consolidation of a revolution of an articulation between institutionalized workers power, a correct conof the party/state relations and a Leninist concept of building the party (extension of proletarian base, free political discussion, capacity to launch public discussion related with key interests of masses, etc.). Such an articulation, far from holding back the exercise of power by the proletariat or the consolidation of its dictatorship, is an indispensable guarantee for the safeguarding of this power both against the bourgeoisie and imperialism and the dangers of a bureaucratic process. It avoids the masses being taken by surprise by events as happened
The Grenadian tragedy must also help to reinforce the education of revolutionary militants throughout the world on why violence should never be used against the masses or between revolutionaries to settle political differences.
6. The main task of the Fourth International, given the victorious counterrevolution in Grenada, is to participate in the international solidarity movement with the Grenadian masses, and revolutionaries against American imperialism and its puppets and to explain the reasons of the defeat, in which the Coard faction's seizure of power played a key role. We will do all we can to build this.
Foreign troops out of Grenada Hands off the gains of the GrenadImmediate and unrestricted toration of democratic rights for the
The Fourth International also participates in the international movement of solidarity with the Grenadian working class organisations and the Maurice Bishop and Martyrs of October 19th Foundation and works to defend them against any repression attempted by the reactionary regime established in Grenada. It will seek to alert its audience among vanguard layers to the increased dangers of counter-revolutionary military intervention against the Central American revolution, the Sandinista revolutionary government and Cuba. International Viewpoint 4 June 1984