The social system, like the economic system, was ordered and geared toward the benefit of all Grenadians. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Marxist Theory. Four years earlier, in 1979, a socialist revolution had installed Bishop’s New Jewel Movement (NJM) in power in the Caribbean microstate of less than 100,000 people. By 1983 the party internally accepted that its revolution was no longer as popular as it had been four years earlier.
According to Grenade, it ‘existed at the intersection of Marxist-Leninism, the international anti-colonial struggle, the Black Power movement and the Caribbean left tradition . Trade with the Soviet Union also propped up weaker sections of Grenada’s economy. Sexual exploitation of women in exchange for work was outlawed, equal pay for equal work was introduced — modelled on Britain’s own 1970 Equal Pay Act — and mothers were guaranteed three months’ maternity leave, two of which were paid, as well as a return to the same job they had left. Grenadian citizens also benefitted from a ‘social wage’ . What many of us value is our patrimony — that connection to our land and our cultural heritage. Its heroic figure, Maurice Bishop, will not be forgotten. For years, Gairy ruled through fear. . When leaders have emerged to challenge these conditions, they have often ended up on a list with Bishop himself: either overthrown, as Nkrumah, or dead, as Lumumba, Sankara, and Cabral.Income tax was abolished for 30 per cent of the lowest-paid workers.
But supporting the latter’s invasion of Afghanistan at the UN damaged the country’s relationship with non-aligned states and opened the door to accusations in Washington that it was becoming a puppet state.Wendy C. Grenade expands on this further, highlighting the National Transportation Service, the Marketing and National Importing Board, a national insurance scheme, and a fisheries processing plant. The tourism sector, which had previously been reliant on Americans, declined as the US government pushed propaganda through travel agents that Grenada’s beaches were covered in barbed wire. This is not an accident, but the result of the very same debt cycles and rigged trade agreements which Bishop railed against.
The international recession of the early 1980s impacted Grenada, as did the stuttering economies of its allies in the Communist world. Development for many of us transcends the material to a spiritual connection. Prices of several items were controlled by the state. Residents on the 121-square-mile tri-island nation of Grenada, Carriacou, and Petit Martinique (population 110,000) awoke on the morning of March 13, 1979, to radio reports that the elected government of Prime Minister Eric Gairy had been replaced in a relatively bloodless coup by the New Jewel Movement (NJM). Whatever the circumstances, the outcome was disastrous. A state department report from the time summarised the Americans’ concerns. Unsurprisingly, as the revolution progressed, women provided a sizeable portion of the NJM’s base.And yet, only two months after that speech, Maurice Bishop was dead — executed by members of his own party after a catastrophic split in the revolution. Public spending increased dramatically: total government expenditure grew from 38.7% of GDP to 52.7% in just four years.A keen student of Caribbean socialists like CLR James as well as African liberation leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Bishop was an extraordinary public speaker. What many of us value is time with family, time on the beach [and] just being at one with nature. The cycle of authoritarianism, resistance, and state-sanctioned violence mirrored the 1951 period and indeed earlier periods, such as Fédon’s Rebellion of 1795–96.This does not deny the fact that as small island states we do face severe challenges. It is unlikely that the revolution could have achieved as much in terms of economic transformation without the assistance of Cuba. Grenada’s Revolution set out to be an example to the world as to what Black Power and the fight for socialism could mean. . This time it was ‘Go, go, Gairy must go.’Contrary to the bombastic arguments of the Reagan administration at the time, the Grenadian Revolution was an indigenous phenomenon and not a Soviet plant in the region. . More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for a transition from capitalism to socialism. While the majority working-class Grenadians remained loyal to Gairy, particularly the elderly, the emerging intellectual elite and the children of those who benefited from Gairy’s 1951 social revolution challenged a meaningless ‘in-dependence’ that was not intended to bring about a just society. They pushed a strategy of joint leadership, aiming to bring Coard’s abilities for organisation to the fore alongside Bishop’s talents for communication.Domestic factors also weighed heavily on the revolution in its final years. Photo: U.S. troops guard prisoners in Grenada in 1983. In his analysis, the ‘clandestine vanguard structure’ which was essential to the NJM’s military success in 1979 later hindered its abilities as a government.