Vol. 76/No. 41      November 12, 2012

The program took place on the 29th anniversary of the counterrevolutionary coup by a Stalinist faction within the New Jewel Movement, the ruling party of the revolutionary government. Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, central leader of the revolution and NJM, was murdered along with five other revolutionary leaders and other working people and youth.

George shared the platform with Steve Clark, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party and author of “The Second Assassination of Maurice Bishop,” the lead article in issue six of the Marxist magazine New International. Their presentations were followed by questions and comments from participants.

The tyranny of Eric Gairy that was swept away with the 1979 revolution had “no compassion for its people,” George said. “Maurice Bishop ushered in a new era of possibilities. Grenada became a country where the son of a fisherman could get an education; where you could get a tooth filled, not only extracted; where being a farmer was a choice, not a sentence.”

Aid and solidarity from Cuba was decisive to the gains working people achieved during the revolution, she said.

“Why is a meeting of workers in the United States in 2012 discussing a revolution in a small Caribbean island in the early 1980s?” asked Clark. Because, he said, what Grenadian working people accomplished in those five years provides an example for workers and farmers around the world today whose livelihoods, rights and dignity are under assault by the capitalist exploiters.

It’s not primarily the striking examples of how the lives of the great majority of Grenadians improved—the advances they were able to make as a result of wresting power from the propertied rulers in nutrition, health and education among other things— Clark said.

“The most important gain of the Grenadian Revolution was the transformation of men and women through this process. Working people began to see themselves as part of the world, to recognize their own self-worth, to see what they could do working and fighting together to better the conditions of life for all.

“This explains why when a counterrevolutionary faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard arrested Bishop in 1983, some 30,000 Grenadians—30 percent of the nation’s population—came out into the streets to free him from house arrest. The assassination of Bishop and other revolutionaries not only killed the revolution, it opened the door for the U.S. invasion that followed immediately afterward.

“Washington could never invade Grenada while the workers and farmers government led by Bishop was in power,” Clark said, “because it enjoyed the overwhelming support of the people. With the invasion, Washington sought to kill and bury the revolution’s example. But that’s exactly what they can’t do. Its powerful legacy lives on and will be looked to by working-class militants around the world.”

During the discussion period, questions were asked about the impact of the Grenada Revolution on working people in the U.S., and about the role of Cuba and Cuban President Fidel Castro’s leadership during the revolution.

The Grenadian people owe a debt to Cuba, George said. “We will always be grateful for the help they gave.”

“The years of the revolution in Grenada were ones where the people had hope,” said Kathleen Samuel, who spoke from the floor. Like George she took part in the revolution as a youth.

She described the new access to education and health care that was unprecedented for the people of Grenada both before and since the revolution. Many of those advances were aided by support from Cuba, she explained.

The Militant newspaper chronicled the revolutionary developments in Grenada, Nicaragua and Iran that all had revolutions in 1979. “That coverage, which on Grenada included well over 300 articles during the revolution and after its overthrow, was eagerly read by working people,” Clark said.

“I learned a lot about the Grenadian Revolution when I was growing up. It was always talked about,” Christi Samuel, Kathleen’s 19-year-old daughter, told the Militant after the program. “But until this forum I never realized how much else was happening in the world—Nicaragua, Iran and other countries—that the Grenadian Revolution was part of.”
 
 
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Grenada Revolution gains based on mobilization of people  
 
 
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