A course for Armageddon

On October 20, 1983 Maurice Bishop, prime minister of Grenada, was shot dead in a bloody coup, along with ten others, after a violent split in his party.

Bishop’s New Jewel Movement had staged the socialist “Revo” in 1979 against the dictatorial prime minister Eric Gairy. After the coup, US troops invaded the island (TT was one of the few Caribbean countries which opposed the US invasion, along with the Bahamas, Belize and Guyana). The coupmakers, the “Grenada 17,” were tried and imprisoned. They were freed in 2008.

This week we publish the second of a series of excerpts from Godfrey Smith’s new book The Assassination of Maurice Bishop.

GODFREY SMITH

It was the fifth measure that set the party on a course for Armageddon. There should be joint leadership of the party marrying the strengths of Comrade (Cde) Bishop and Cde Coard, James proposed.

Without pausing, he explained in detail how responsibility would be distributed between the joint leaders. Cde Bishop would direct propaganda work among the masses; focus on the working class by visiting the urban and rural workplaces; and be responsible for militia mobilisation and regional and international work. Cde Coard would take responsibility for party work; organisational development and formation of comrades and strategy and tactics.

A hush might have been expected to descend as members tried to digest the full implications of such a sudden and novel idea or to gauge the leader’s reaction to it. That was not the case. Comrades reacted spontaneously, marvelling at the genius of it.

“Brilliant,” exclaimed Minister of Health, Chris DeRiggs.

“Shows depth of thinking,” remarked McBarnette.

“Impressive,” said Selwyn Strahan.

“Only Bernard Coard has the qualities to push the revolution forward,” Layne sternly pronounced. Though he resigned the CC last year, he has still been providing ideological and organizational leadership and advice on strategy and tactics. The reason these qualities are lacking on the CC is because Cde Coard has been out of party leadership.

George Louison, finally reading the subtext of the proposal, mounted spirited opposition. “While I welcome Cde Coard back on the CC, I don’t see how joint leadership can solve the weaknesses of the leader,” he protested. “What is needed is personal discipline from the Cde Leader to make the change, and collective ‘mannersing’ from the CC to ensure that he develops the qualities. If that doesn’t work, it might be necessary to remove the Comrade in the future.” In some parties, he pointed out, one person was head of state and another was head of the party but the head of state was subordinate to the head of the party.

Cornwall responded that Louison’s counterproposal could never solve the fundamental problem identified. It had been tried before and produced no results. In fact it had plunged the party into a crisis. Joint leadership offered the best opportunity to rescue the rapidly deteriorating situation.

One member struggled to conceptualise how it would work. He said he wanted the idea spelt out more clearly and needed to give it more thought before he could take a position.

Selwyn Strachan, the minister of mobilisation, weighed in. Sello had always been very close to Maurice. Before the revolution, he virtually lived at Maurice’s house. They played tennis together and both liked a lot of women. It was said that he virtually lived off Maurice during that period. “After years of working with the two Comrades,” Sello said, “I am able to recognise their respective strengths. The Cde Leader can unite all classes, while Cde Coard has the qualities lacking. The proposal is a creative way of fusing their qualities. It would help transform the leader into a Marxist-Leninist.”

Unison opposed. He suggested that Coard should instead be brought back into the CC and given specific duties as deputy leader.

Phyllis Coard, undaunted by any conflict of interest, extolled the benefits of joint leadership, which, she argued, should be on a long-term basis. She suggested that the entire minutes of the meeting should be circulated to the full membership of the party. Unless they read it in the minutes, they would not believe it if they were merely told.

Minutes of the Central Committee meetings were only ever circulated to its members, never the full membership of the party.

Bishop listened, wisps of cigarette smoke partially shrouding his furrowed brows, as his comrades argued the case for joint leadership. He knew he was weak organisationally. That was Bernard’s domain. His great strength lay in his popular appeal, inside Grenada and beyond. Just a few months earlier, he had delivered a rousing, two-hour speech before a jam-packed audience of a thousand people at the Kensington Town Hall in West London. He had drawn a standing ovation when he said that Grenada would not be drawn into President Reagan’s geopolitical game of constructing a Pax Americana to destroy the socialist world. Reagan, he proclaimed, was the greatest disaster to hit mankind since Hitler.

DeRiggs outlined a detailed 13-point plan for the reassignment of powerful positions within the party and the army. There had been no previous notice of such plans. Joint leadership seemed like just the hub of a broader plan for the redistribution of power within the party. It was proposed, for example, that George Louison be reassigned away from the capital, St George’s, to St Andrew’s, which was a hotbed of counter-revolutionary activity. His mobilisation skills, they argued, were needed in St Andrew’s.

H.A. should be removed as head of the army and replaced by Layne. Cornwall should not return as ambassador to Cuba but put in charge of the army’s academic and political work. James would take charge of the Ministry of the Interior. Phyllis Coard would remain in control of the St George’s Parish Coordinating Bureau of the NJM, the party’s most important local body. An entire strategy of redeployment appeared to have been mapped out.

“I’ve never had any problem with sharing power,” Maurice began – pausing to light a fresh cigarette and inhaling deeply as he formulated his thoughts – “or a bad attitude to criticism. I’ve worked very well with Cde Bernard over the years from school days. We’ve worked together on a lot of policy decisions. As some of you know, Bernard and I both wrote the NJM’s manifesto and the people’s indictment of Gairy. I’ve always stood up for the Comrade. Remember when he was accused of aggressiveness and trying to grab power in ’77, I was the one who defended him.

“Nobody has the right to be leader for life. I personally favour co-operation over competition. Bernard has great skills and intelligence and should come back.

“I’m just concerned about the operationalisation of strategy and tactics and how we articulate these decisions to the masses. I’m afraid it will be viewed as a power struggle. This amounts to a clear vote of no confidence in me. I can’t keep the masses inspired if I have to keep watching my back or wondering if I have the full confidence of comrades.” He suggested that the matter be put first to Bernard before any final decision was taken.

Comrades baulked at this suggestion, insisting that the CC take a decision now on joint leadership before speaking to Coard. They seemed to be gripped by an urgency that would not permit any delay. When Maurice had expressed concern on the first day of the meeting about the length of time it might take to discuss certain issues, Layne had dismissively replied that matters should go on for as long as was necessary.

Now he was urging for an immediate decision but made it clear that the criticisms of Cde Bishop had been made in a spirit of love for the party, ideological clarity and the desire to build a genuine Marxist-Leninist party. This could not be done without frank criticism. He pointed out that comrades had not been brave enough before to criticise the leader. It would be sad, he said, if it was interpreted that this was a vote of no confidence. The minutes of this meeting should be studied by the full membership of the party, he concluded, supporting Phyllis’s earlier suggestion.

James spoke again, insisting that his proposal was necessary to pull the party out of the current, dangerous crisis.

“How will joint leadership help the leader develop his weaknesses?” Louison demanded.

“He will learn from experience by working together with Cde Coard,” James answered.

That triggered a heated and angry exchange, with James accusing Louison of trying to derail the proceedings for opportunist reasons.

“I can leave the meeting now if you all want,” Louison retorted hotly.

Maurice appealed for calm and asked everyone to take it easy. He reiterated that some of the points needed clarification. James tried to provide clarification.

Cde Bishop will remain prime minister, commander-in-chief and will sign off on all CC documents. Cde Coard will not decide on strategy and tactics all by himself but will chair all committees on strategy and tactics. The CC would then ratify all proposals submitted. In any event, he concluded, Cde Coard is the one who has always developed strategy and tactics for the party so it wouldn’t be anything new.

Comrades have been so open and frank that if there was any thought of removing the leader they would have said so, Phyllis reasoned. The Cde Leader will simply have to accept the spirit of criticism. If he sees it as a vote of no confidence this will just discourage comrades from continuing to be frank.

Godfrey Smith, a former attorney General of Belize, is the author of George Price: A Life Revealed (2011), for which he won the Bocas prize for non-fiction in 2012. He is also the author of Michael Manley: The Biography (2016).

The Assassination of Maurice Bishop is published by Ian Randle Publishers, 1 (876) 978 0745, info@randlebooks.com. Available online www.amazon.com, BookFusion.com and in bookstores.