Misplaced Pages

#118881

227-613: The People's Revolutionary Government ( PRG ) was proclaimed on 13 March 1979 after the Marxist–Leninist New Jewel Movement overthrew the government of Grenada in a revolution, making Grenada the only socialist state within the Commonwealth . In Grenada, the revolution is referred to as the March 13th Revolution of 1979 or simply as “The Revolution”. The government suspended the constitution and ruled by decree until

454-426: A mixed economy dominated by the state sector with a view of replacing the market economy in force under Gairy's government and promoting the fastest possible transition to socialism . The PRG, nevertheless, showed itself incapable of setting up a real planned economy , due in particular to a lack of qualified executives, despite the presence of advisors from other Caribbean countries or "socialist" countries. Due to

681-484: A troika that featured Stalin as General Secretary, the de facto centre of power in the party and the country. The direction of the party was decided in confrontations of politics and personality between Stalin's troika and Trotsky over which Marxist policy to pursue, either Trotsky's policy of permanent revolution or Stalin's policy of socialism in one country . Trotsky's permanent revolution advocated rapid industrialisation, elimination of private farming and having

908-450: A de facto monopoly on information. People's Law No. 81 prohibited private individuals from holding more than 4% of the shares in a newspaper, which was equivalent to causing the disappearance of the non-governmental press. A second law, promulgated in June 1981, banned the publishing of a newspaper for a full year, until the adoption of new legislation on press freedom . The government then defined

1135-490: A demonstration in support of Bishop, but he was arrested in the evening. Marxist%E2%80%93Leninist Marxism–Leninism ( Russian : Марксизм-Ленинизм , romanized :  Marksizm-Leninizm ) is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution . It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments throughout

1362-588: A factional conflict broke out, culminating in an invasion by the United States on 25 October 1983. Grenada, a 350 km Caribbean island state located in the Lesser Antilles , gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1974, after a long process. In 1967, the country received the status of an associated state , thus acquiring very high autonomy in the management of its internal affairs. Eric Gairy ,

1589-682: A few days, or even a few hours, the country had, at the end of 1982, around 120 counter-revolutionary prisoners, most of whom had been detained for two years or more, most of them without trial. Winston Whyte, the leader of the United People's Party, a party previously allied with the New Jewel Movement, was among those imprisoned. In March 1983, taking into account the releases in previous months, Amnesty International recorded 97 political prisoners in Grenada. More broadly, in terms of public freedoms,

1816-458: A few months: Oliver Seraphin , Prime Minister of Dominica and Allan Louisy , Prime Minister of Saint Lucia. Also among the Grenadian government's main allies was Michael Manley , socialist prime minister of Jamaica; but from 1980, Manley's electoral defeat deprived Maurice Bishop of this important support. Séraphin and Louisy also quickly left power. More broadly, the expected shift to the left in

2043-544: A former union leader and leader of the Grenada United Labor Party (GULP), became prime minister and led the Grenadian government during the political process that later resulted in the country's complete independence. Even before then, however, Gairy's government experienced a clear authoritarian drift. In the 1960s, a new generation of intellectuals from the middle classes emerged in Grenada, many of whom trained at British and American universities. Their return to

2270-416: A general assembly of party activists was held in the presence of 250 to 300 people. The meeting took place in a hateful atmosphere: Bishop was accused of being a "petty-bourgeois opportunist" incapable of leading the country towards socialism, and of not wanting to establish joint leadership of the party. Bishop then took the stand and admitted his failings to democratic centralism, while expressing doubts about

2497-520: A high degree of centralised control by the state and Communist party , political repression , state atheism , collectivisation and use of labour camps , as well as free universal education and healthcare , low unemployment and lower prices for certain goods . Historians such as Silvio Pons and Robert Service stated that the repression and totalitarianism came from Marxist–Leninist ideology. Historians such as Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick have offered other explanations and criticise

SECTION 10

#1732851749119

2724-652: A massive urbanisation in the country. Unemployment was virtually eliminated in the country during the 1930s. However, this rapid industrialisation also resulted in the Soviet famine of 1930–1933 that killed millions. Social developments in the Soviet Union included the relinquishment of the relaxed social control and allowance of experimentation under Lenin to Stalin's promotion of a rigid and authoritarian society based upon discipline, mixing traditional Russian values with Stalin's interpretation of Marxism. Organised religion

2951-762: A model for later Soviet-type regimes; its global influence, having at its height covered at least one-third of the world's population, has made Marxist–Leninist a convenient label for the Communist bloc as a dynamic ideological order. Historiography of Marxist–Leninist states is polarised. According to John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr , historiography is characterised by a split between traditionalists and revisionists. "Traditionalists", who characterise themselves as objective reporters of an alleged totalitarian nature of communism and Marxist–Leninist states, are criticised by their opponents as being anti-communist , even fascist , in their eagerness on continuing to focus on

3178-594: A movement in support of a nurses' strike turned into a confrontation with the police. Bishop contributed to the defence of the accused and their acquittal. The main opposition was the Grenada National Party (GNP) of former Prime Minister Herbert Blaize , one of the more radical groups that formed during the Black Power movement, which at the time adopted a Marxist-Leninist line and joined the international communist movement. In 1972, Maurice Bishop participated in

3405-459: A new meaning since the Russian Revolution , as they became equivalent to the ideas of Marxism–Leninism, namely the interpretation of Marxism by Vladimir Lenin and his successors. Endorsing the final objective, namely the creation of a community-owning means of production and providing each of its participants with consumption " according to their needs ", Marxism–Leninism puts forward

3632-559: A new political force to oppose Gairy. On 11 March 1973, MAP, led by Maurice Bishop and Kenrick Radix, merged with JEWEL to give birth to the New Jewel Movement (NJM), which presented itself as an alternative to GULP and the GNP. The NJM manifesto, socialist in spirit, called for the preservation of the country's independence from Europe and the United States, and favoured the role of grassroots communities over state authority. The text rejects

3859-399: A police officer. At four o'clock in the afternoon, the revolutionaries took control of the country. The NJM revolution immediately received broad support from the population, the majority of whom were tired of Gairy's abuses. In the villages, women prepared food for the insurgents; many young people joined the men of the new revolutionary army to carry out patrols. The takeover of the radio by

4086-628: A possible conflict of interests in Grenada between the USSR and Cuba have not been determined. In October 1982, Kenrick Radix, minister of industrial development and close ally of Bishop, and Caldwell Taylor, ambassador to the UN, were excluded from the party's central committee. Radix, convinced of being the victim of a plot intended to weaken the Prime Minister, then resigned from the NJM and announced his intention to leave

4313-477: A press conference, such as village assemblies and workers' assemblies, which would have the task of electing "parish assemblies", which would then elect the parliament and appoint the government subsequently. These statements by Bishop constituted the most precise information ever provided regarding the institutions envisaged by the new regime. The New Jewel Movement was particularly influenced, in its conceptions, by pro-Soviet Caribbean Marxist theorists: this envisaged

4540-630: A reinforcement of proletarian revolution in Europe. In 1912, Lenin resolved a factional challenge to his ideological leadership of the RSDLP by the Forward Group in the party, usurping the all-party congress to transform the RSDLP into the Bolshevik party. In the early 1910s, Lenin remained highly unpopular and was so unpopular amongst international socialist movement that by 1914 it considered censoring him. Unlike

4767-851: A successful revolution occurred in Asia, when the Mongolian Revolution of 1921 established the Mongolian People's Republic (1924–1992). The percentage of Bolshevik delegates in the All-Russian Congress of Soviets increased from 13%, at the first congress in July 1917, to 66%, at the fifth congress in 1918. As promised to the Russian peoples in October 1917, the Bolsheviks quit Russia's participation in

SECTION 20

#1732851749119

4994-414: A system of collective ownership of newspapers, equivalent to a mode of self-management of the written press; the lack of precision regarding the timetable for a transition to collective ownership of newspapers, however, contributed to the fears at the time that this program was only a pretext to extend state control over the press. The PRG's policy on freedom of information was all the more poorly perceived as

5221-453: A version of Korean ultranationalism , which eventually developed after losing its original Marxist–Leninist elements. According to North Korea: A Country Study by Robert L. Worden, Marxism–Leninism was abandoned immediately after the start of de-Stalinisation in the Soviet Union and has been totally replaced by Juche since at least 1974. Daniel Schwekendiek wrote that what made North Korean Marxism–Leninism distinct from that of China and

5448-420: A view to defending itself against a possible attack. This interview profoundly affected American-Grenadian relations: Bishop and Coard considered these warnings as threats, even as a mark of contempt and racism on the part of the ambassador. On 13 April, Bishop delivered an offensive speech vigorously denouncing American interference. The next day, diplomatic relations were opened with Cuba with contacts between

5675-490: A whole, marked by economic dysfunctions. A certain number of PRG reforms, however, were having positive effects: the authorities set up a system of financial and equipment loans for farmers, and agricultural cooperatives to develop the activity. Bishop's government also worked to develop infrastructure, notably by building new roads. Concerning educational policy, the PRG worked to improve the level of education in Grenada, where 7% of

5902-714: A youth movement closely controlled by the NJM youth committee. Phyllis Coard, Bernard's wife, chaired the National Women's Organization: the women's branch of the party, founded before the takeover of power but largely developed after 1979. NJM activists created "Parish councils", led by the party branches: seven in number across the country, these councils were intended to be the main instruments of direct democracy in Grenada. Initially open only to party members and supporters, parish councils — which had no legal existence — were quickly opened to all to discuss local problems. The councils first of all benefit from real popular enthusiasm, and

6129-527: Is "new historians of American communism", but that has not caught on because these historians describe themselves as unbiased and scholarly and contrast their work to the work of anti-communist traditionalists whom they would term biased and unscholarly. Academic Sovietology after World War II and during the Cold War was dominated by the "totalitarian model" of the Soviet Union, stressing the absolute nature of Stalin's power. The "revisionist school" beginning in

6356-458: Is an empty term that depends on the approach and basis of ruling Communist parties, and is dynamic and open to redefinition, being both fixed and not fixed in meaning. As a term, "Marxism–Leninism" is misleading because Marx and Lenin never sanctioned or supported the creation of an -ism after them, and is reveling because, being popularized after Lenin's death by Stalin, it contained three clear doctrinal and institutionalized principles that became

6583-499: Is married to foreigners, and is resulting in death to the people". In the 1976 Grenadian general election , the Grenada United Labour Party won nine of the 15 seats, whilst the opposition People's Alliance (a coalition of the New Jewel Movement, the Grenada National Party and the United People's Party) won the remainder. However, the elections were marred by fraud (and branded fraudulent by international observers), as

6810-452: Is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. The claim that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions evolved into the idea that he had updated it in a fundamental way applying to the world as a whole. Consequently, Mao Zedong Thought became the official state ideology of the People's Republic of China as well as

7037-470: Is so great that we cannot, at one stroke, restore full-scale factory, state, socialist production." He added that the development of socialism would proceed according to the actual material and socio-economic conditions in Russia and not as abstractly described by Marx for industrialised Europe in the 19th century. To overcome the lack of educated Russians who could operate and administrate industry, Lenin advocated

People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada) - Misplaced Pages Continue

7264-510: Is superior to Stalin only in one respect, namely, in being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite, and more attentive to comrades." Upon his death on 21 January 1924, Lenin's political testament was read aloud to the Central Committee, who chose to ignore Lenin's ordered removal of Stalin as General Secretary because enough members believed Stalin had been politically rehabilitated in 1923. Consequent to personally spiteful disputes about

7491-440: Is the ideology of the ruling parties of China , Cuba , Laos and Vietnam (all one-party socialist republics ), as well as many other communist parties . The state ideology of North Korea is derived from Marxism–Leninism, although its evolution is disputed. Marxist–Leninist states are commonly referred to as " communist states " by Western academics. Marxism–Leninism was developed from Bolshevism by Joseph Stalin in

7718-506: The 14th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) chose Stalin's policy, defeating Trotsky as a possible leader of the party and of the Soviet Union. In the 1925–1927 period, Stalin dissolved the troika and disowned the centrist Kamenev and Zinoviev for an expedient alliance with the three most prominent leaders of the so-called Right Opposition , namely Alexei Rykov ( Premier of Russia , 1924–1929; Premier of

7945-593: The Axis powers , the native communist party usually led the armed resistance ( guerrilla warfare and urban guerrilla warfare ) against fascist military occupation. In Mediterranean Europe, the communist Yugoslav Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito effectively resisted the German Nazi and Italian Fascist occupation. In the 1943–1944 period, the Yugoslav Partisans liberated territories with Red Army assistance and established

8172-668: The Bavarian Soviet Republic . In Hungary, the disorganised workers who had proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic were fought and defeated by the royal armies of the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well as the army of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia . These communist forces were soon crushed by anti-communist forces and attempts to create an international communist revolution failed. However,

8399-594: The Chinese Communist Party . After military defeat exiled Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang nationalist government to Formosa island ( Taiwan ), Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. In the late 1940s, the geopolitics of the Eastern Bloc countries under Soviet predominance featured an official-and-personal style of socialist diplomacy that failed Stalin and Tito when Tito refused to subordinating Yugoslavia to

8626-609: The Korean Armistice Agreement (27 July 1953); and the superpower Cold War in Asia then resumed as the Korean Demilitarised Zone . Mongoose Gang A news report from 1974 states that the "Mongoose squad" sometimes carried rifles, but generally carried "thick pieces of wood". Mongoose Gang members also tended not to dress in any distinctive way. The Mongoose Gang was responsible for silencing critics, breaking up demonstrations and murdering opponents of

8853-509: The Left Opposition to Stalin within the Soviet party and government, Leon Trotsky and Trotskyists argued that Marxist–Leninist ideology contradicted Marxism and Leninism in theory, therefore Stalin's ideology was not useful for the implementation of socialism in Russia. Moreover, Trotskyists within the party identified their anti-Stalinist communist ideology as Bolshevik–Leninism and supported

9080-507: The Politburo . In 1929, Stalin politically controlled the party and the Soviet Union by way of deception and administrative acumen. In that time, Stalin's centralised, socialism in one country régime had negatively associated Lenin's revolutionary Bolshevism with Stalinism, i.e. government by command-policy to realise projects such as the rapid industrialisation of cities and the collectivisation of agriculture. Such Stalinism also subordinated

9307-622: The Red Army , who were poorly led, ill-trained and under-equipped. As a result, they fought poorly and suffered great losses of soldiers (killed, wounded and captured). The weakness of the Red Army was partly consequence of the Great Purge (1936–1938) of senior officers and career soldiers whom Stalin considered politically unreliable. Strategically, the Wehrmacht 's extensive and effective attack threatened

People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada) - Misplaced Pages Continue

9534-754: The Russian Civil War (1917–1922) against the Bolshevik government. Moreover, despite the White–Red civil war, Russia remained a combatant in the Great War that the Bolsheviks had quit with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which then provoked the Allied Intervention to the Russian Civil War by the armies of seventeen countries, featuring Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States and Imperial Japan. Elsewhere,

9761-582: The Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , the Soviet Union, and the Communist International to establish universal Marxist–Leninist praxis . The formulation of the Soviet version of dialectical and historical materialism in the 1930s by Stalin and his associates, such as in Stalin's text Dialectical and Historical Materialism , became the official Soviet interpretation of Marxism , and

9988-664: The Russian Republic (September–November 1917). Later in the October Revolution , the Bolshevik's seizure of power against the Provisional Government resulted in their establishment of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1991), yet parts of Russia remained occupied by the counter-revolutionary White Movement of anti-communists who had united to form the White Army to fight

10215-514: The Sino-Soviet split (1956–1966) and the two countries broke their international relations (diplomatic, political, cultural and economic). China's Great Leap Forward , an idealistic massive reform project, resulted in an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths between 1959 and 1961, mostly from starvation. In Eastern Asia, the Cold War produced the Korean War (1950–1953), the first proxy war between

10442-635: The State Duma and the Russian Constitution of 1906 ) were the Tsar's piecemeal and cosmetic concessions to social progress because public office remained available only to the aristocracy , the gentry and the bourgeoisie . These reforms resolved neither the illiteracy , the poverty , nor malnutrition of the proletarian majority of Imperial Russia. In Swiss exile, Lenin developed Marx's philosophy and extrapolated decolonisation by colonial revolt as

10669-472: The Third World , did not practice large-scale violence against its opponents — refraining from executing them or sentencing them to forced labor — the preventive detentions were frequent. Around 3,000 people, out of a population of less than 90,000 for the entire country, were arrested and questioned during the PRG's four years in power, 300 being detained: while a majority of those arrested were only detained for

10896-452: The Third World socialist regimes, have been variously described as "bureaucratic-authoritarian systems", and China's socio-economic structure has been referred to as "nationalistic state capitalism". Criticism of Marxism–Leninism largely overlaps with criticism of communist party rule and mainly focuses on the actions and policies of Marxist–Leninist leaders, most notably Stalin and Mao Zedong . Marxist–Leninist states have been marked by

11123-675: The Tito–Stalin split , the Sino-Soviet split , and the Sino-Albanian split . The socio-economic nature of Marxist–Leninist states, especially that of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era (1924-1953), has been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of bureaucratic collectivism , state capitalism , state socialism , or a totally unique mode of production . The Eastern Bloc, including Marxist–Leninist states in Central and Eastern Europe as well as

11350-637: The Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939) and to jointly invade and partition Poland , by way of which Nazi Germany started the Second World War (1 September 1939). In the 1941–1942 period of the Great Patriotic War , the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa, 22 June 1941) was ineffectively opposed by

11577-576: The Western Front (4 August 1914 – 11 November 1918), Imperial Germany impelled the withdrawal of Imperial Russia from the war's Eastern Front (17 August 1914 – 3 March 1918) by sending Lenin and his Bolshevik cohort in a diplomatically sealed train, anticipating them partaking in revolutionary activity. In March 1917, the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II led to the Russian Provisional Government (March–July 1917), who then proclaimed

SECTION 50

#1732851749119

11804-699: The absolute monarchy of the Tsar of Russia . Most importantly, the experience of this revolution caused Lenin to conceive of the means of sponsoring socialist revolution through agitation, propaganda and a well-organised, disciplined and small political party. Despite secret-police persecution by the Okhrana (Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order), émigré Bolsheviks returned to Russia to agitate, organise and lead, but then they returned to exile when peoples' revolutionary fervour failed in 1907. The failure of

12031-492: The death of Lenin , Joseph Stalin completed his rise to power and was the leader of the Soviet Union who theorised and applied the socialist theories of Lenin and Karl Marx as political expediencies used to realise his plans for the Soviet Union and for world socialism . Concerning Questions of Leninism (1926) represented Marxism–Leninism as a separate communist ideology and featured a global hierarchy of communist parties and revolutionary vanguard parties in each country of

12258-410: The means of production , suppress opposition , counter-revolution , and the bourgeoisie , and promote Soviet collectivism , to pave the way for an eventual communist society that would be classless and stateless . After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, Marxism–Leninism became a distinct movement in the Soviet Union when Stalin and his supporters gained control of the party . It rejected

12485-615: The permanent revolution to differentiate themselves from Stalin's justification and implementation of socialism in one country . After the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union claimed to be the sole heir and successor to Stalin concerning the correct interpretation of Marxism–Leninism and ideological leader of world communism . In that vein, Mao Zedong Thought , Mao Zedong 's updating and adaptation of Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions in which revolutionary praxis

12712-610: The "totalitarian model", as outlined by political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich , which stated that the Soviet Union and other Marxist–Leninist states were totalitarian systems, with the personality cult, and almost unlimited powers of the "great leader", such as Stalin. It was considered to be outdated by the 1980s and for the post-Stalinist era. Some academics, such as Stéphane Courtois ( The Black Book of Communism ), Steven Rosefielde ( Red Holocaust ), and Rudolph Rummel ( Death by Government ), wrote of mass, excess deaths under Marxist–Leninist regimes. These authors defined

12939-419: The 1920s based on his understanding and synthesis of classical Marxism and Leninism . Marxism–Leninism holds that a two-stage communist revolution is needed to replace capitalism . A vanguard party , organized through democratic centralism , would seize power on behalf of the proletariat and establish a one-party socialist state, called the dictatorship of the proletariat . The state would control

13166-557: The 1960s focused on relatively autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level. Matt Lenoe described the "revisionist school" as representing those who "insisted that the old image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state bent on world domination was oversimplified or just plain wrong. They tended to be interested in social history and to argue that the Communist Party leadership had had to adjust to social forces." These "revisionist school" historians challenged

13393-673: The 1970s, a small portion of Marxist–Leninists began to downplay or repudiate the role of Mao in the Marxist–Leninist international movement in favour of the Albanian Labour Party and stricter adherence to Stalin. The Sino-Albanian split was caused by Albania 's rejection of China's Realpolitik of Sino–American rapprochement, specifically the 1972 Mao–Nixon meeting which the anti-revisionist Albanian Labour Party perceived as an ideological betrayal of Mao's own Three Worlds Theory that excluded such political rapprochement with

13620-472: The 1979 revolution, the governments of Caribbean countries met to decide what to do with the new government, questioning the degree of left-wing orientation of the PRG. George Louison was sent as an emissary by Maurice Bishop to reassure the leaders of the Caribbean states and the Grenadian revolutionary government multiplied the assurances of its good faith to obtain the recognition of its neighbors; recognition of

13847-448: The 20th century. It was developed in Russia by Joseph Stalin and drew on elements of Bolshevism , Leninism , Marxism , and the works of Karl Kautsky . It was the state ideology of the Soviet Union , Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc , and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War , as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization . Today, Marxism–Leninism

SECTION 60

#1732851749119

14074-415: The Anglican Church was more reserved, accusing the New Jewel Movement of having used force to overthrow the government. When they took power, the leaders of the New Jewel Movement, who initiated the revolution in the name of democracy, had no precise idea as to the political model they wanted to propose to the country. The clearest bases for their actions are found in the 1973 manifesto of the NJM, revised in

14301-411: The Bolshevik government fought the internal Russian Civil War (1917–1922) and repelled the external Allied intervention to the Russian Civil War (1918–1925). Vast industrialisation was initiated mostly based with a focus on heavy industry . The Cultural revolution in the Soviet Union focused on restructuring culture and society. During the 1930s, the rapid industrialisation of the country accelerated

14528-442: The Bolshevik government had achieved economic production levels equal to Russia's production levels in 1913. Initial Bolshevik economic policies from 1917 to 1918 were cautious, with limited nationalisations of the means of production which had been private property of the Russian aristocracy during the Tsarist monarchy. Lenin was immediately committed to avoid antagonising the peasantry by making efforts to coax them away from

14755-447: The Bolshevik régime because they had not resolved the food shortages and material poverty of the Russian peoples as promised in October 1917. From that social discontent, the Cheka reported 118 uprisings, including the Kronstadt rebellion (7–17 March 1921) against the economic austerity of the War Communism imposed by the Bolsheviks. The principal obstacles to Russian economic development and modernisation were great material poverty and

14982-400: The Bolsheviks into the party's political vanguard which was composed of professional revolutionaries who practised democratic centralism to elect leaders and officers as well as to determine policy through free discussion, then decisively realised through united action. The vanguardism of proactive, pragmatic commitment to achieving revolution was the Bolsheviks' advantage in out-manoeuvring

15209-494: The Caribbean the establishment of "national-democratic" political regimes based on a class alliance between the bourgeoisie and the local proletariat . The "national democracy" phase would aim to prevent the development of capitalism in the Caribbean, and then move on to the "socialist construction" phase. This theory, designed by Third World intellectuals, aimed to bypass the phase of development of capitalism in their countries to move directly to that of socialism. While emphasizing

15436-551: The Coards had implemented the plot against him: one of his bodyguards, Errol George, began to spread the rumor that Bishop risked being assassinated. The central committee met on 12 October to examine the conspiracy rumors, and Bishop denied being behind them. He then wrote a message, intended to be read on the airwaves of the Radio Free Grenada station, denying the rumors. The central committee then decided to place Maurice Bishop under house arrest, officially for his own safety and to protect him from "counter-revolutionaries". The next day,

15663-411: The Cold War in Europe were the Soviet and Yugoslav, Bulgarian and Albanian military interventions to the Greek Civil War (1944–1949) on behalf of the Communist Party of Greece ; and the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949) by the Soviet Union. The event that precipitated the Cold War in continental Asia was the resumption of the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949) fought between the anti-communist Kuomintang and

15890-467: The Cold War. These academics include Mark Aarons , Noam Chomsky , Jodi Dean , Kristen Ghodsee , Seumas Milne , and Michael Parenti . Ghodsee, Nathan J. Robinson , and Scott Sehon wrote about the merits of taking an anti anti-communist position that does not deny the atrocities but make a distinction between anti-authoritarian communist and other socialist currents, both of which have been victims of repression. Although Marxism–Leninism

16117-422: The Communist International and then through the concept of socialist-leaning countries after de-Stalinisation . The establishment of other communist states after World War II resulted in Sovietisation , and these states tended to follow the Soviet Marxist–Leninist model of five-year plans and rapid industrialisation , political centralisation, and repression. During the Cold War, Marxism–Leninist countries like

16344-524: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union , Khrushchev denounced Stalin and Stalinism in the speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences (25 February 1956) in which he specified and condemned Stalin's dictatorial excesses and abuses of power such as the Great purge (1936–1938) and the cult of personality . Khrushchev introduced the de-Stalinisation of the party and of the Soviet Union. He realised this with

16571-455: The Congress of Soviets, a committee dominated by Vladimir Lenin , who had previously supported multi-party free elections. After the Bolshevik defeat, Lenin started referring to the assembly as a "deceptive form of bourgeois-democratic parliamentarism". This was criticised as being the development of vanguardism as a form of hierarchical party–elite that controlled society. Within five years of

16798-674: The Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc, resulted from dual origins, namely the nationalist Koreans' post-war resumption of their Korean Civil War and the imperial war for regional hegemony sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union. The international response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea was realised by the United Nations Security Council , who voted for war despite the absent Soviet Union and authorised an international military expedition to intervene, expel

17025-479: The Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc. Yugoslavia's international relations matured into the Non-Aligned Movement (1961) of countries without political allegiance to any power bloc . At the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became leader of the Soviet Union and of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and then consolidated an anti-Stalinist government. In a secret meeting at the 20th Congress of

17252-614: The European Parliament . Without denying the tragedy of the events, other scholars criticise the interpretation that sees communism as the main culprit as presenting a biased or exaggerated anti-communist narrative. Several academics propose a more nuanced analysis of Marxist–Leninist rule, stating that anti-communist narratives have exaggerated the extent of political repression and censorship in Marxist–Leninist states and drawn comparisons with what they see as atrocities that were perpetrated by capitalist countries , particularly during

17479-563: The European socialists had failed the working classes for preferring patriotic war to proletarian internationalism . To debunk patriotism and national chauvinism , Lenin explained in the essay Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917) that capitalist economic expansion leads to colonial imperialism which is then regulated with nationalist wars such as the Great War among the empires of Europe. To relieve strategic pressures from

17706-495: The European socialists who chose bellicose nationalism to anti-war internationalism, whose philosophical and political break was consequence of the internationalist–defencist schism among socialists, the Bolsheviks opposed the Great War (1914–1918). That nationalist betrayal of socialism was denounced by a small group of socialist leaders who opposed the Great War, including Rosa Luxemburg , Karl Liebknecht and Lenin, who said that

17933-619: The European-Russian and the Asian-Chinese interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Leninism in each country. The political differences then provoked geopolitical, ideological and nationalist tensions, which derived from the different stages of development, between the urban society of the industrialised Soviet Union and the agricultural society of the pre-industrial China. The theory versus praxis arguments escalated to theoretic disputes about Marxist–Leninist revisionism and provoked

18160-575: The February Revolution exiled Bolsheviks, Mensheviks , Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists such as the Black Guards from Russia. Membership in both the Bolshevik and Menshevik ranks diminished from 1907 to 1908 while the number of people taking part in strikes in 1907 was 26% of the figure during the year of the Revolution of 1905, dropping to 6% in 1908 and 2% in 1910. The 1908–1917 period

18387-401: The GNP. Eric Gairy's party retained the absolute majority in parliament, while Maurice Bishop became the leader of the opposition. In 1977, while their party was evolving towards Marxism-Leninism, Maurice Bishop and Unison Whiteman visited Cuba and came back greatly impressed. The NJM apparently maintained links with the Communist Party of Cuba during this time. Faced with the rise in power of

18614-610: The Gairy regime, including Rupert Bishop, the father of Maurice Bishop , in January 1974. Maurice Bishop himself was beaten by members of the Mongoose Gang two months previously, in November 1973, and jailed. The violence of the Mongoose Gang and the Grenadian police became a more important factor than the state of the economy in generating unrest. MI5 intelligence reports at the time referred to

18841-505: The Gang as being "ruthless", and "an un-uniformed and undisciplined body   ... many of them have criminal records". In November 1974, 10 months after Grenada's independence from Great Britain , Bishop's New Jewel Movement issued a People's Indictment calling for "power to the people" and declaring that "the Gairy Government was born in blood, baptized in fire, christened with bullets,

19068-607: The Great Patriotic War (1941–1945), the Soviet Union was a military superpower with a say in determining the geopolitical order of the world. Apart from the failed Third Period policy in the early 1930s, Marxist–Leninists played an important role in anti-fascist resistance movements , with the Soviet Union contributing to the Allied victory in World War II. In accordance with the three-power Yalta Agreement (4–11 February 1945),

19295-656: The Great War on 3 March 1918. That same year, the Bolsheviks consolidated government power by expelling the Mensheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets . The Bolshevik government then established the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission) secret police to eliminate anti–Bolshevik opposition in the country. Initially, there was strong opposition to

19522-470: The Grenadian government. Reagan's initiative did not, however, meet with great success, with the majority of Caribbean Community governments wishing instead to improve their relations with the PRG after the tensions of 1981. The Grenadian government, for its part, came to fear an American invasion on its soil: in March 1983, maneuvers by the US Navy in Caribbean waters alarmed Maurice Bishop enough to make him leave

19749-459: The Mongoose Gang had been threatening the opposition. The Mongoose Gang was used against protesters during the 1977 General Assembly of the Organization of American States hosted by Grenada. In 1979, a rumour circulated that Gairy would use the Gang to eliminate leaders of the New Jewel Movement while he was out of the country. In response, Bishop overthrew Gairy in March of that year while

19976-539: The NJM, came together with churches to form the Committee of 22 to organize the protest against Gairy. On 4 November, the NJM brought together 8,000 people during a demonstration called the Popular Congress. A resolution was published which declared Gairy guilty of numerous crimes, including police brutality and embezzlement of public funds. The Prime Minister reacted strongly. NJM supporters were soon threatened, both by

20203-793: The Nazi's lasted until the Schutzstaffel and the Einsatzgruppen began their Lebensraum killings of the Jewish populations, the local communists, the civil and community leaders—the Holocaust meant to realise the Nazi German colonisation of Bolshevik Russia. In response, Stalin ordered the Red Army to fight a total war against the Germanic invaders who would exterminate Slavic Russia. Hitler's attack against

20430-576: The New Jewel Movement government established secret links with Cuba, which very quickly supplied the former with weapons. With the United States, relations went through several phases, only to deteriorate quickly. After his overthrow, Eric Gairy denounced a communist coup in his country and tried to obtain American aid: the State Department nevertheless tended to rely on the United Kingdom for analysis of

20657-557: The New Jewel Movement regime, which it was done mainly at the insistence of the Cubans and after ensuring the stability of Bishop's government: the joint communiqué of the USSR and the PRG was signed in Havana. Cooperation between the USSR and Grenada, however, remained limited, particularly on the economic level — with Cuba remaining the main partner of the Grenadian government. The New Jewel Movement, nevertheless, aimed to develop its relations with

20884-462: The New Jewel Movement, Eric Gairy at the beginning of 1979 considered taking action and having members of the party's leadership arrested. Political tension was further aggravated when the police discovered barrels of grease intended to transport weapons from the United States to Grenada for the benefit of the NJM. The NJM also formed a small, armed clandestine group placed under the leadership of former prison guard and police officer Hudson Austin, one of

21111-430: The New Jewel Movement, Maurice Bishop reaffirmed the "national-democratic" and "anti-imperialist" character of the Grenadian revolution, and his intention to establish a "workers' dictatorship": in this optically, he claimed to want to continue to govern by decree and to exclude the elements of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie allied to his regime from power and from the public space, in order to lead Grenada towards

21338-439: The New Jewel Movement, moreover, experienced divisions, with Bernard Coard's faction opposing that of Maurice Bishop. The revolution led by Bishop appeared to be "moderate procastrist." The line defended by Bernard Coard was situated in a more radical communist logic, even Stalinist, on a certain number of points and recommended a more strictly Leninist organization of the party, which continued after its seizure of power to be led in

21565-507: The PRG denouncing it as a party of "big shots." When its leader Herbert Blaize tried to organize a meeting, he was mistreated by supporters of the NJM, while the revolutionary army refrained from intervening. Instead of parliamentary democracy, the Popular Revolutionary Government aimed to rely on a system of "popular power" — or "participatory democracy" — that is, on a set of local assemblies that Maurice Bishop defined, in

21792-482: The PRG saw its role in Marxist terms, from the angle of a "dictatorship of the proletariat", which would include the right to exercise "limited repression" against "bourgeois" opposition to the revolution. Under Gairy's regime, the opposition did not have access to state media, a situation which did not change under the PRG. As the only radio station on the island (Radio Grenada, renamed after the revolution Radio Free Grenada)

22019-496: The PRG, sent their ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean, Franck Ortiz, to Grenada: the first interview went well; the American ambassador, while announcing aid projects to Grenada, encouraged NJM leaders to organize elections. During his second trip to Grenada, Ortiz found Bishop and his government particularly worried about a possible coup mounted by Gairy from his exile. The ambassador assured Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard that

22246-620: The People's Revolutionary Government would lead to the need for Grenada's return to a constitutional standard as the States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). During the first months of its existence, the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada seemed to announce a "left turn" in the Caribbean. In July 1979, a mini-summit was held in Grenada which brought together, alongside Maurice Bishop, two other Labor heads of government who came to power for

22473-546: The Red Army began to repel the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, especially at the Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943) and at the Battle of Kursk (5 July – 23 August 1943). The Red Army then repelled the Nazi and Fascist occupation armies from Eastern Europe until the Red Army decisively defeated Nazi Germany in the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation (16 April–2 May 1945). On concluding

22700-596: The Sinified Marxism–Leninism of Mao Zedong—his Chinese adaptations of Stalinist interpretation and praxis for establishing socialism in China. To realise that leap of Marxist faith in the development of Chinese socialism, the Chinese Communist Party developed Maoism as the official state ideology. As the specifically Chinese development of Marxism–Leninism, Maoism illuminated the cultural differences between

22927-433: The Socialist Revolutionaries, allowing a peasant takeover of nobles ' estates while no immediate nationalisations were enacted on peasants' property. The Decree on Land (8 November 1917) fulfilled Lenin's promised redistribution of Russia's arable land to the peasants, who reclaimed their farmlands from the aristocrats, ensuring the peasants' loyalty to the Bolshevik party. To overcome the civil war's economic interruptions,

23154-497: The Soviet Russians learned the technology and the techniques required to operate and administrate industries. Importantly, Lenin declared that the development of socialism would not be able to be pursued in the manner originally thought by Marxists. A key aspect that affected the Bolshevik regime was the backward economic conditions in Russia that were considered unfavourable to orthodox Marxist theory of communist revolution. At

23381-513: The Soviet Union (Nazi Germany's erstwhile ally) realigned Stalin's political priorities, from the repression of internal enemies to the existential defence against external attack. The pragmatic Stalin then entered the Soviet Union to the Grand Alliance , a common front against the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan ). In the continental European countries occupied by

23608-552: The Soviet Union , 1924–1930), Nikolai Bukharin ( General Secretary of the Comintern , 1926–1929; Editor-in-Chief of Pravda , 1918–1929), and Mikhail Tomsky (Chairman of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions in the 1920s). In 1927, the party endorsed Stalin's policy of socialism in one country as the Soviet Union's national policy and expelled the leftist Trotsky and the centrists Kamenev and Zinoviev from

23835-501: The Soviet Union and its allies were one of the major forces in international relations . With the death of Stalin and the ensuing de-Stalinisation, Marxism–Leninism underwent several revisions and adaptations such as Guevarism , Ho Chi Minh Thought , Hoxhaism , Maoism , socialism with Chinese characteristics , and Titoism . More recently Nepalese communist parties have adopted People's Multiparty Democracy . This also caused several splits between Marxist–Leninist states, resulting in

24062-506: The Soviet Union included Stalin dismantling the remaining elements of democracy from the party by extending his control over its institutions and eliminating any possible rivals. The party's ranks grew in numbers, with the party modifying its organisation to include more trade unions and factories. The ranks and files of the party were populated with members from the trade unions and the factories, whom Stalin controlled because there were no other Old Bolsheviks to contradict Marxism–Leninism. In

24289-407: The Soviet Union promote the spread of communist revolution abroad. Stalin's socialism in one country stressed moderation and development of positive relations between the Soviet Union and other countries to increase trade and foreign investment. To politically isolate and oust Trotsky from the party, Stalin expediently advocated socialism in one country, a policy to which he was indifferent. In 1925,

24516-598: The Soviet Union purged native fascist collaborators and these in collaboration with the Axis Powers from the Eastern European countries occupied by the Axis Powers and installed native Marxist–Leninist governments. Upon Allied victory concluding the Second World War (1939–1945), the members of the Grand Alliance resumed their expediently suppressed, pre-war geopolitical rivalries and ideological tensions which disunity broke their anti-fascist wartime alliance through

24743-503: The Soviet Union was that it incorporated national feelings and macro-historical elements in the socialist ideology, opting for its "own style of socialism". The major Korean elements are the emphasis on traditional Confucianism and the memory of the traumatic experience of Korea under Japanese rule as well as a focus on autobiographical features of Kim Il Sung as a guerrilla hero. In the other four existing Marxist–Leninist socialist states , namely China, Cuba , Laos , and Vietnam ,

24970-640: The Soviet Union. In 1948, circumstance and cultural personality aggravated the matter into the Yugoslav–Soviet split (1948–1955) that resulted from Tito's rejection of Stalin's demand to subordinate the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia to the geopolitical agenda (economic and military) of the Soviet Union, i.e. Tito at Stalin's disposal. Stalin punished Tito's refusal by denouncing him as an ideological revisionist of Marxism–Leninism; by denouncing Yugoslavia's practice of Titoism as socialism deviated from

25197-461: The Soviet communists to fight throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, creating agreements with France to challenge Germany. After Germany and Britain signed the Munich Agreement (29 September 1938) which allowed the German occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945), Stalin adopted pro-German policies for the Soviet Union's dealings with Nazi Germany. In 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agreed to

25424-498: The Soviet government, in particular to act as a relay between the USSR and the Caribbean left. In July 1982, a cooperation agreement was signed between the NJM and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, providing for an exchange of experiences and training between cadres of the two parties. Similar cooperation agreements were signed with the Cuban, Bulgarian and East German communist parties. Various Eastern Bloc countries sent aid workers. In

25651-435: The Soviet people's sociological transition from poverty to relative plenty when politically illiterate peasants passed from Tsarist serfdom to self-determination and became politically aware urban citizens. The Marxist–Leninist economic régime modernised Russia from the illiterate, peasant society characteristic of monarchy to the literate , socialist society of educated farmers and industrial workers. Industrialisation led to

25878-786: The Third World. With the end of the Grand Alliance and the start of the Cold War, anti-fascism became part of both the official ideology and language of Marxist–Leninist states, especially in East Germany . Fascist and anti-fascism , with the latter used to mean a general anti-capitalist struggle against the Western world and NATO , became epithets widely used by Marxist–Leninists to smear their opponents, including democratic socialists , libertarian socialists , social democrats and other anti-Stalinist leftists . The events that precipitated

26105-472: The USSR also provided for the training of Grenadian soldiers on Soviet soil. Armament deliveries from various communist countries were largely planned for 1986, and only part of the planned Soviet aid arrived in 1983 at the time of the fall of the regime. Relations with the United States continued to be very tense — Maurice Bishop's support for the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan finally deteriorated them at

26332-460: The United States aimed to give the American establishment and public the image of a responsible head of government, to help revive American tourism in Grenada, but also to establish links between the Government Grenada's popular revolutionary and the black American community. Ronald Reagan, however, did not respond to the request for a meeting sent to him by Maurice Bishop. The latter's visit to

26559-542: The United States also seemed to have contributed to annoy the most radical faction of the New Jewel Movement, which considered diplomatic overtures towards Washington. Within the People's Revolutionary Government and the New Jewel Movement, the power struggle between Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard resulted over the years in the ousting of those close to the Prime Minister. The political styles of Bishop and Coard, very contrasting, — Bishop who, unlike Coard, enjoyed real popularity in public opinion, mainly sought consensus within

26786-415: The United States had no intention of allowing Gairy to raise an army and invade Grenada from their territory; but the diplomat made several blunders, firstly by warning Bishop and Coard of the risks of a drop in tourism in their country in the event of political unrest, then by giving them a press release indicating that the United States would take a dim view a military alliance of Grenada with Cuba, even with

27013-662: The West. To the Albanian Marxist–Leninists, the Chinese dealings with the United States indicated Mao's lessened, practical commitments to ideological orthodoxy and proletarian internationalism . In response to Mao's apparently unorthodox deviations, Enver Hoxha , head of the Albanian Labour Party, theorised anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism, referred to as Hoxhaism , which retained orthodox Marxism–Leninism when compared to

27240-403: The administration. The country remained a Commonwealth realm, with Queen Elizabeth II still recognized as Grenada's official head of state. Sir Paul Scoon, the governor-general of the island, was also retained in his honorary role, with the new regime wishing to protect the former colonial metropolis. The Catholic Church, which was very present in Grenada, immediately recognized the new power, while

27467-409: The affluence required them to be subdivided into "Zonal councils". Board meetings were frequently divided into workshops to discuss specific topics. In 1982, local councils lost their importance in favor of Village Coordinating Bureaus (VCBs) responsible for aligning their work with government bodies, local militia and unions. Despite the development of local assemblies, their members were excluded from

27694-580: The animals. The men who were employed in such work became known as the 'mongoose-gang'. Later, the name shifted to refer to gangs of political thugs on Grenada. In fact, it was Gairy himself who got jobs for a number of men and women on the mongoose-eradication project in the 1950s when he was a representative of the Colony of Grenada's Legislative Council. For Gairy's part, in a 1984 interview with New York magazine , he denied employing thugs or any kind of secret police. The Mongoose Gang has often been compared to

27921-451: The army of Grenada to storm the barracks where approximately 200 men of the party resided to take over the radio station and take control of the country. In the early hours of the morning of 13 March, NJM leaders voted to decide whether or not to carry out the coup. With for and against tied (Hudson Austin and Bernard Coard having voted for, and Maurice Bishop and another executive against), an additional executive, George Louison, took part in

28148-450: The attack of June 1980 triggered an "offensive" by the government against its "enemies", these events being attributed to the presence on the island of counter-revolutionary groups. Following the bombing, a wave of arrests took place; an anti-terrorism decree stipulates that any suspect in an attack will be tried by a court sitting without a jury and that terrorist activities will be punished by death. Four people were arrested and charged for

28375-490: The attack: during their trial, the judge discovered that the confessions of two of the accused were extracted under torture, and declared their statements inadmissible. The trial was adjourned accordingly: the suspects remained imprisoned and, in December 1983, after the fall of the PRG, were the subject of an amnesty by the governor general. While the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada, unlike other "socialist" regimes in

28602-488: The beginning of 1980 — and was, particularly after the election of Ronald Reagan as president, marked by a series of aggressive declarations from both sides. The construction of the new airport with the help of Cuba particularly worried the American government, which feared it was to be used for military maneuvers. In April 1982, Ronald Reagan went to Jamaica and Barbados : he met various Caribbean heads of government, whose support he tried on this occasion to secure against

28829-489: The cause of world communism ; and by expelling the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform). The break from the Eastern Bloc allowed the development of a socialism with Yugoslav characteristics which allowed doing business with the capitalist West to develop the socialist economy and the establishment of Yugoslavia's diplomatic and commercial relations with countries of

29056-449: The centres of revolutionary action were too far apart for proper political coordination. To generate revolutionary momentum from the Tsarist army killings on Bloody Sunday (22 January 1905), the Bolsheviks encouraged workers to use political violence in order to compel the bourgeois social classes (the nobility, the gentry and the bourgeoisie) to join the proletarian revolution to overthrow

29283-471: The collectivisation of agriculture. It achieved 23.6% of collectivisation within two years (1930) and 98.0% of collectivisation within thirteen years (1941). As the revolutionary vanguard, the communist party organised Russian society to realise rapid industrialisation programs as defence against Western interference with socialism in Bolshevik Russia. The five-year plans were prepared in the 1920s whilst

29510-405: The common notion among Western Marxists of world revolution as a prerequisite for building socialism, in favour of the concept of socialism in one country . According to its supporters, the gradual transition from capitalism to socialism was signified by the introduction of the first five-year plan and the 1936 Soviet Constitution . By the late 1920s, Stalin established ideological orthodoxy in

29737-745: The communist political authority that became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . To end the Imperial Japanese occupation of China in continental Asia, Stalin ordered Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party to temporarily cease the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949) against Chiang Kai-shek and the anti-communist Kuomintang as the Second United Front in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). In 1943,

29964-422: The communist regimes, mainly through Cuba: the regime of Fidel Castro played intermediary to help Grenada, whose means of communication with foreign countries were limited to conclude agreements with the USSR, Vietnam and Czechoslovakia. The USSR, which did not consider the Caribbean as a priority area of action, was cautious regarding the Grenadian revolution and took six months to establish diplomatic relations with

30191-489: The concept of totalitarianism into the anti-communist Western Bloc and the Marxist–Leninist Eastern Bloc . The renewed competition for geopolitical hegemony resulted in the bi-polar Cold War (1947–1991), a protracted state of tension (military and diplomatic) between the United States and the Soviet Union which often threatened a Soviet–American nuclear war , but it usually featured proxy wars in

30418-495: The consequences of Hurricane Allen and the fall in export prices. After the revolution, the PRG extended state control over the economy, following recipes inspired by those of communist regimes : trade, infrastructure and non-agricultural businesses were largely nationalized; although agriculture, predominant in the Grenadian economy, remained essentially in the private sector, government representatives were appointed to supervise agricultural exports. The government aimed to develop

30645-587: The construction of socialism in one country, the NKVD established the Gulag system of forced-labour camps for regular criminals and political dissidents, for culturally insubordinate artists and politically incorrect intellectuals and for homosexual people and religious anti-communists . Beginning in 1928, Stalin's five-year plans for the national economy of the Soviet Union achieved the rapid industrialisation (coal, iron and steel, electricity and petroleum, among others) and

30872-730: The continual and permanent development of Marxism–Leninism, with ideological adaptation to material conditions. The Bolshevik Party lost in the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election , obtaining 23.3% of the vote, to the Socialist Revolutionary Party , which obtained 37.6%. On 6 January 1918, the Draft Decree on the Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was issued by the Central Executive Committee of

31099-490: The country coincided with the spread of a strong Black Power movement in the Caribbean, inspired by that of the United States. Lawyer and revolutionary Maurice Bishop was one of the leaders of a demonstration in 1970 in support of a protest movement that took place at the same time in Trinidad and Tobago ; the Grenadian opponents took advantage of this context to denounce the corruption of Gairy's government. A few months later,

31326-469: The country due to its participation in various social movements. The group, however, was not strictly a political party and did not have a global vision to take power. Conversely, MAP was a more intellectually-structured party, but lacked any real presence outside the capital. In the 1972 elections, the Grenada National Party was defeated, and the radicals concluded that they needed to unite to build

31553-499: The country's economy, risked being a complete loss if North American tourists no longer visited. Maurice Bishop proposed to the NJM central committee a moratorium on anti-American statements and strives to restore good relations with the United States. In June 1983, he responded to an invitation from Mervyn M. Dymally, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus , and went to Washington for a diplomatic visit. Bishop's trip to

31780-486: The country's independence, the tensions remained high and the country continued to experience violence. On 21 January, Bishop's father was murdered; several NJM supporters were also killed. The country's economy was paralyzed. Gairy's government received financial assistance from the United Kingdom, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana to pay civil servants and continue to operate the state until the day of independence. On 7 February 1974, Grenada gained independence as planned, while

32007-535: The country). By 1939, with the exception of Stalin himself, none of the original Bolsheviks of the October Revolution of 1917 remained in the party. Unquestioning loyalty to Stalin was expected by the regime of all citizens. Stalin exercised extensive personal control over the party and unleashed an unprecedented level of violence to eliminate any potential threat to his regime. While Stalin exercised major control over political initiatives, their implementation

32234-407: The decision and voted for the insurrection, which instigated the launch of the revolution. The operation was carried out by 46 NJM militants, often very young, with only 21 guns among them. The barracks were taken over at four in the morning and the buildings attacked with incendiary bombs . The troop was overpowered without difficulty, the soldiers being taken completely by surprise. The radio station

32461-420: The decision-making process and, although they could make suggestions, they were unable to challenge government policies, which they were required to approve. "Popular power", therefore, found itself disarmed in the face of the central committee of the New Jewel Movement, which held the real decision-making power even though its members had no other democratic legitimacy than their election by acclamation in 1973. In

32688-409: The dekulakisation to lessen the negative social impact in the relations between the Soviet peoples and the party, but Stalin took umbrage and then accused them of uncommunist philosophical deviations from Lenin and Marx. That implicit accusation of ideological deviationism licensed Stalin to accuse Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky of plotting against the party and the appearance of impropriety then compelled

32915-413: The deterioration of relations between the government and the Grenadian clergy. The Popular Revolutionary Government had come to consider the Grenadian churches (Catholic, Protestant and Anglican) as direct adversaries: a report from the Grenadian authorities described the clergy as the most dangerous of potential counter-revolutionary centers and recommended continuous surveillance of the churches, as well as

33142-510: The development of a technical intelligentsia who would propel the industrial development of Russia to self-sufficiency. As he neared death after suffering strokes, Lenin's Testament of December 1922 named Trotsky and Stalin as the most able men in the Central Committee, but he harshly criticised them. Lenin said that Stalin should be removed from being the General Secretary of the party and that he be replaced with "some other person who

33369-412: The development of relations between the PRG and the liberation theology movement . In the health sector, Bishop's government strived to improve the services available: in this area it benefits in particular from aid from Cuba, which provided a dozen specialist doctors to Grenada, thus doubling the number of specialists in the country. Maternity leave and public health centres were also introduced. After

33596-452: The dismantling of the Gulag archipelago of forced-labour camps and freeing the prisoners as well as allowing Soviet civil society greater political freedom of expression, especially for public intellectuals of the intelligentsia such as the novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , whose literature obliquely criticised Stalin and the Stalinist police state . De-Stalinisation also ended Stalin's national-purpose policy of socialism in one country and

33823-448: The early 1980s, a series of secret agreements were signed between the USSR and Grenada, providing Soviet aid in equipment and weapons worth 20 million rubles. After a visit by Bernard Coard to Prague, Czechoslovakia supplied arms to Grenada in exchange for an agreement providing for the delivery, from 1984, of 80 tonnes of nutmeg per year. North Korea undertook to deliver weapons, ammunition and 6,000 uniforms to Grenada. The agreements with

34050-598: The election of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party government in Germany initially caused the Soviet Union to sever diplomatic relations that had been established in the 1920s. In 1938, Stalin accommodated the Nazis and the anti-communist West by not defending Czechoslovakia, allowing Hitler's threat of pre-emptive war for the Sudetenland to annex the land and "rescue the oppressed German peoples" living in Czecho. To challenge Nazi Germany 's bid for European empire and hegemony, Stalin promoted anti-fascist front organisations to encourage European socialists and democrats to join

34277-457: The establishment of the Soviet Union in the former Russian Empire , Bolshevism was the ideological basis. As the only legal vanguard party , it decided almost all policies, which the communist party represented as correct. Because Leninism was the revolutionary means to achieving socialism in the praxis of government, the relationship between ideology and decision-making inclined to pragmatism and most policy decisions were taken in light of

34504-444: The event, the Russian peoples created an economy of barter and black market to counter the Bolshevik government's voiding of the monetary economy . In 1921, the New Economic Policy restored some private enterprise to animate the Russian economy. As part of Lenin's pragmatic compromise with external financial interests in 1918, Bolshevik state capitalism temporarily returned 91% of industry to private ownership or trusts until

34731-407: The evolution of the NJM. The party leadership initially refused the request of its high school branch, which wanted the official adoption of Marxism-Leninism. It then evolved significantly towards socialism and Marxism. The NJM, however, had not yet adopted a primarily anti-capitalist discourse, with its main concern being fighting the government of Eric Gairy. Despite the prevailing corruption, Gairy

34958-551: The excellent personal relations between Fidel Castro and Maurice Bishop. The head of the NJM expressed great admiration for the Cuban leader, who in return showed him almost paternal affection. Cuba supplied weapons to the new Grenadian regime and sent advisors to form the People's Revolutionary Army of Grenada. In June 1979, a cooperation agreement between the two countries was concluded, providing for assistance from Cuba to developments in Grenada's health sector and infrastructure. A new agreement, this time secret, on military cooperation,

35185-435: The feasibility of joint leadership. Erroll George was summoned to appear and reiterate his accusations regarding the plot against Bishop; the latter remained silent which was interpreted as an admission of guilt in disseminating the coup d'état thesis. The central committee decided to keep the Prime Minister in detention until light is shed on the origin of the rumor. Jacqueline Creft, Minister of Education and Bishop's companion,

35412-401: The final crisis, more than any other objective political factor. One thesis is that the Soviets, during the coup, "remotely guided" the radical faction of Bernard Coard deemed closer to their interests, but this element has not however been proven ; the Coard tendency seemed to have developed more links with the USSR while the Bishop tendency was closer to Cuba: the reality, or seriousness of

35639-434: The first tension between the government and the bourgeoisie of Grenada, the majority of which had applauded the overthrow of Gairy. Bishop pledged to return "as soon as possible" to constitutional rule and to appoint a constituent assembly charged with drafting a new constitution which will be approved by referendum. A commission responsible for forming new electoral lists was formed. However, People's Law No. 20 of 1979, which

35866-405: The focus on the upper levels of society and use of concepts such as totalitarianism which have obscured the reality of the system. While the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally communist state led to communism's widespread association with Marxism–Leninism and the Soviet model , several academics say that Marxism–Leninism in practice was a form of state capitalism. In

36093-479: The founding of the Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP), formed by intellectuals from the capital, and advocated the replacement of the parliamentary system with local assemblies, inspired by the Ujamaa villages of the African socialist regime of Tanzania . At the same time, the Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation (JEWEL) was formed and led by economist Unison Whiteman . JEWEL, which mainly campaigned for rural populations, drew large support in

36320-495: The government of Maurice Bishop also received, in 1980, the support of Daniel Ortega , Sandinista president of Nicaragua, who announced his solidarity with the revolution in Grenada. In addition to links with Latin American left-wing governments, Maurice Bishop told the central committee of the New Jewel Movement that he aimed to maintain good relations with all countries of the world, with the exception of "fascist dictatorships". Nevertheless, cooperative relations soon developed with

36547-432: The government within a year. Coard, second in the NJM hierarchy, also announced his resignation from the central committee, expressing his dissatisfaction with the inability of the party leadership to adopt a truly Leninist line. Subsequently, the animosity of certain executives towards the Prime Minister increased when they learned that during an interview with George Chambers, head of government of Trinidad and Tobago, Bishop

36774-400: The ideological basis of communist parties around the world which sympathised with China. In the late 1970s, the Peruvian communist party Shining Path developed and synthesised Mao Zedong Thought into Marxism–Leninism–Maoism , a contemporary variety of Marxism–Leninism that is a supposed higher level of Marxism–Leninism that can be applied universally. Following the Sino-Albanian split of

37001-489: The ideology of the post-Stalin Soviet Union. In North Korea , Marxism–Leninism was superseded by Juche in the 1970s. This was made official in 1992 and 2009, when constitutional references to Marxism–Leninism were dropped and replaced with Juche . In 2009, the constitution was quietly amended so that not only did it remove all Marxist–Leninist references present in the first draft but also dropped all references to communism . Juche has been described by Michael Seth as

37228-428: The importance of Stalin's leadership to the Marxist–Leninist ideology. Radek's suggestion failed to catch on, as Stalin as well as CPSU's ideologists preferred to continue the usage of Marxism–Leninism . Marxism–Leninism–Maoism became the name for the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party and of other Communist parties , which broke off from national Communist parties, after the Sino–Soviet split , especially when

37455-456: The increased emphasis on planning, prices were generally out of sync with supply and demand . The deterioration of the economic environment made market mechanisms less effective, while planning failed to achieve the objectives set and Grenada is, more broadly, afflicted with all the ills specific to developing countries (lack of natural resources, qualified personnel, technologies and absence of manufacturing industry). The period 1979–1983 was, as

37682-420: The insurgents played an essential role among the population, to the point that Maurice Bishop subsequently spoke of a "revolution by radio". Around sixty executives of the old regime were incarcerated. The army and the Mongoose gang were declared dissolved. Benefiting at the time of the coup from massive support from the population, Bishop was able to proclaim a People's Revolutionary Government (PRG), of which he

37909-456: The intent of orders from Moscow, but this allowed their corruption. To Stalin, the correction of such abuses of authority and economic corruption were responsibility of the NKVD. In the 1937–1938 period, the NKVD arrested 1.5 million people, purged from every stratum of Soviet society and every rank and file of the party, of which 681,692 people were killed as enemies of the state . To provide manpower (manual, intellectual and technical) to realise

38136-490: The interests (political, national and ideological) of Asian and European communist parties to the geopolitical interests of the Soviet Union. In the 1928–1932 period of the first five-year plan , Stalin effected the dekulakisation of the farmlands of the Soviet Union, a politically radical dispossession of the kulak class of peasant-landlords from the Tsarist social order of monarchy. As Old Bolshevik revolutionaries, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky recommended amelioration of

38363-403: The international political climate around his regime. On 22 March 1979, the United States recognized the new regime, after concluding that a return to power for Gairy was not possible; the American administration nevertheless emphasized that it supported the request of the Caribbean states for a return to political normality. On 23 March, the United States, wishing to establish good relations with

38590-405: The island . Although support groups were set up in most villages, penetration into the countryside was more difficult than in urban areas. The influence of GULP and the main union, Grenada Manual & Mental Workers Union (GMMWU), remained strong among peasants and agricultural workers. The NJM succeeded in broadening its activist base, yet it still lacked ideological coherence. Things changed with

38817-544: The issues of the Cold War . Alternative characterisations for traditionalists include "anti-communist", "conservative", "Draperite" (after Theodore Draper ), "orthodox", and "right-wing"; Norman Markowitz, a prominent "revisionist", referred to them as "reactionaries", "right-wing romantics", "romantics", and "triumphalist" who belong to the " HUAC school of CPUSA scholarship". According to Haynes and Klehr, "revisionists" are more numerous and dominate academic institutions and learned journals. A suggested alternative formulation

39044-486: The lack of modern technology which were conditions that orthodox Marxism considered unfavourable to communist revolution. Agricultural Russia was sufficiently developed for establishing capitalism, but it was insufficiently developed for establishing socialism. For Bolshevik Russia, the 1921–1924 period featured the simultaneous occurrence of economic recovery, famine (1921–1922) and a financial crisis (1924). By 1924, considerable economic progress had been achieved and by 1926

39271-416: The late 1930s, the Soviet Union adopted the 1936 Soviet Constitution which ended weighted-voting preferences for workers, promulgated universal suffrage for every man and woman older than 18 years of age and organised the soviets (councils of workers) into two legislatures, namely the Soviet of the Union (representing electoral districts) and the Soviet of Nationalities (representing the ethnic groups of

39498-460: The latter was visiting the United States . The Mongoose Gang then ceased to operate; the Gang's leader, Mosyln Bishop, a taxi driver, was subsequently sentenced later that year to fourteen years in prison for attempting to murder three people in November 1973. The name 'Mongoose Gang' originated in the 1950s, when the local health officials sought to eliminate the mongoose as a pest, and paid people who brought in mongoose tails as proof of killing

39725-419: The leaders of the New Jewel Movement remained in prison. The strike lasted until the end of March. After their release, the leaders of the NJM had to acknowledge the failure of their action and decided to carry out more methodical militant work to gain power. In the following years, the New Jewel Movement worked to establish itself within the population. Its weekly, the New Jewel , became the most widely read on

39952-413: The leadership of Hudson Austin, the latter being promoted to the rank of general. A popular militia was created to support the army in the event of an attack on the island. Thanks to help from Cuba, the People's Revolutionary Army quickly saw its numbers increase from around fifty men to around 2,000, a figure greater than that of all the other armed forces combined in the Antilles region. The leadership of

40179-432: The liberal and conservative political parties who advocated social democracy without a practical plan of action for the Russian society they wished to govern. Leninism allowed the Bolshevik party to assume command of the October Revolution in 1917. Twelve years before the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks had failed to assume control of the February Revolution of 1905 (22 January 1905 – 16 June 1907) because

40406-493: The light of Leninist contributions. Maurice Bishop declared the end, in Grenada, of the Westminster system inherited from the United Kingdom, as well as of parliamentary democracy. Fifteen days after taking power, the PRG announced, in the "Declaration of the Grenadian Revolution", the "suspension" of the constitution and the dissolution of Parliament, thus granting itself executive and legislative powers. The elections announced by Maurice Bishop were postponed. These decisions caused

40633-414: The manner of an underground movement. Bernard Coard's good mastery of Marxist-Leninist theoretical concepts often allowed him, thanks to the deference of Bishop and his entourage for Leninist analyses, to dominate internal debates within the party leadership. The Bishop and Coard factions, however, had no major disagreement over the pace of the transition to socialism. In 1982, in a speech to the executives of

40860-406: The northern invaders from the south of Korea and restore the geopolitical status quo ante of the Soviet and American division of Korea at the 38th Parallel of global latitude. Consequent to Chinese military intervention in behalf of North Korea, the magnitude of the infantry warfare reached operational and geographic stalemate (July 1951 – July 1953). Afterwards, the shooting war was ended with

41087-571: The only party officials with military training. The leaders of the NJM, informed of the Prime Minister's plans against them, managed to escape arrest and lived in hiding for several days. The NJM took advantage of a trip to New York by Eric Gairy — who was going to the UN to plead in favor of an institution responsible for studying extraterrestrial phenomena — to organize a coup. On 12 March, shortly before midnight, Maurice Bishop, Bernard Coard, Unison Whiteman and other party officials gathered their activists to outline an action plan consisting of deploying

41314-420: The owners of private newspapers provided maximum publicity to the repressive measures to which they were subject. In contrast, the collective ownership program of the media has little impact on the population. On the economic level, the Revolutionary Government operated in a very unfavorable context: Grenada, whose economy relies largely on tourism (the island mainly produces nutmeg and bananas), suffers from both

41541-408: The party and relied on his popularity and his personal charisma, while Coard acted in the manner of an "apparatchik" attached to the notion of democratic centralism — made the Prime Minister vulnerable to the maneuvers of his No. 2. The personal ambition of Bernard Coard, who considered himself more intelligent and more qualified than Maurice Bishop, seemed to have played a driving role in triggering

41768-479: The party with a "solid Marxist-Leninist base". Coard's supporters proposed a motion establishing joint leadership of the party, with Maurice Bishop to share power with Bernard Coard: the decision was put to a vote — representing the first internal vote in the history of the NJM — and adopted by nine votes to one, with George Louison voting against and Maurice Bishop, Foreign Minister Unison Whiteman and trade union leader Fitzroy Bain abstaining. Tension remained extreme in

41995-420: The periods and countries vary among different ideologies and parties, they generally accept that the Soviet Union was socialist during Stalin's time, Maoists believe that China became state capitalist after Mao's death, and Hoxhaists believe that China was always state capitalist, and uphold the Albania as the only socialist state after the Soviet Union under Stalin. Communist ideologies and ideas have acquired

42222-459: The police and by a group of Gairy's henchmen, known as the Mongoose Gang . The New Jewel Movement, strong from the success of its Popular Congress, then decided to organize a general strike on 18 November. On that day, party leaders, including Maurice Bishop, were arrested and beaten in their cells. In response to the Prime Minister, the Committee of 22, supported by the NJM, launched a general strike, which began on 1 January 1974. A few weeks before

42449-565: The policy of War Communism (1918–1921), a regulated market , state-controlled means of distribution and nationalisation of large-scale farms, was adopted to requisite and distribute grain in order to feed industrial workers in the cities whilst the Red Army was fighting the White Army's attempted restoration of the Romanov dynasty as absolute monarchs of Russia. Moreover, the politically unpopular forced grain-requisitions discouraged peasants from farming resulted in reduced harvests and food shortages that provoked labour strikes and food riots. In

42676-445: The political party system, calling for a "pure democracy" which would involve "all the people, all the time". In the months following the formation of the NJM, political tension increased on the island. In May 1973, the United Kingdom announced the total independence of Grenada would occur in February 1974. The opposition then mobilized, fearing that Eric Gairy would impose a dictatorship on the country. Political organizations, including

42903-510: The political repression by communists as a " Communist democide ", "Communist genocide", "Red Holocaust", or followed the "victims of Communism" narrative. Some of them compared Communism to Nazism and described deaths under Marxist–Leninist regimes (civil wars, deportations, famines, repressions, and wars) as being a direct consequence of Marxism–Leninism. Some of these works, in particular The Black Book of Communism and its 93 or 100 millions figure, are cited by political groups and Members of

43130-423: The popular character of power, the PRG followed the Leninist strategy of controlling the population by a militant elite: from the first months following the seizure of power, the government of the New Jewel Movement claimed a monopoly on power by placing reliable executives and activists in all strategic positions. Mass organizations under the authority of the party were formed, such as the National Youth Organization,

43357-424: The population is illiterate: a Center for Popular Education (CPE) was created to coordinate government education initiatives, including literacy campaigns. Efforts are being made to improve school results and programs. Learning Grenadian Creole is permitted at school. The PRG's tendency to marginalize religious education and, more broadly, the role of the church - particularly the Catholic — in education, contributed to

43584-444: The population, the initial enthusiasm gradually gave way to hostility, as disagreements with the policies of the People's Revolutionary Government mounted. The negative consequences for the island's economy (notably the drop in the number of tourists) caused by the deterioration of relations with the United States was one of the main causes of discontent. The disbanded army was replaced by the new People's Revolutionary Army (PRA), under

43811-432: The praxis of Leninism , the October Revolution veterans Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev said that the true threat to the ideological integrity of the party was Trotsky, who was a personally charismatic political leader as well as the commanding officer of the Red Army in the Russian Civil War and revolutionary partner of Lenin. To thwart Trotsky's likely election to head the party, Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev formed

44038-400: The principles of socialist realism and Russian traditions that Stalin admired were allowed to continue. Foreign policy in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1941 resulted in substantial changes in the Soviet Union's approach to its foreign policy. In 1933, the Marxist–Leninist geopolitical perspective was that the Soviet Union was surrounded by capitalist and anti-communist enemies. As a result,

44265-448: The radicalization of security measures. In November 1979, a plot against the government mounted by a former police officer, Wilton de Ravenière, was discovered; in June 1980, during a public meeting, a bomb exploded under the official platform on which Maurice Bishop and other personalities were located. Although the speakers' lives were saved by the concrete slab beneath their feet, three young girls were killed. The plot of November 1979 and

44492-408: The recognition of the class struggle as a dominating principle of a social change and development. In addition, workers (the proletariat ) were to carry out the mission of reconstruction of the society. Conducting a socialist revolution led by what its proponents termed the " vanguard of the proletariat ", defined as the communist party organised hierarchically through democratic centralism ,

44719-510: The regimes of Fidel Castro and Maurice Bishop now coming to light. The United States saw its fears confirmed by this rapprochement, while the Grenadian government saw the American attitude as a manifestation of imperialism. Relations between the two countries continued to be strained throughout the rest of 1979 until the end of Jimmy Carter 's term in the White House, notably when several American citizens were briefly arrested in Grenada. Ties between Cuba and Grenada grew rapidly, facilitated by

44946-399: The region did not occur. Right-wing parties won the elections in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda, where parties close to the New Jewel Movement are eliminated. Diplomatic relations with Trinidad and Tobago was cold, and those with Guyana was deteriorating. The Grenadian government, therefore, found itself politically isolated in the region. As soon as it came to power,

45173-430: The resignations of the Old Bolsheviks from government and from the Politburo. Stalin then completed his political purging of the party by exiling Trotsky from the Soviet Union in 1929. Afterwards, the political opposition to the practical régime of Stalinism was denounced as Trotskyism (Bolshevik–Leninism), described as a deviation from Marxism–Leninism, the state ideology of the Soviet Union. Political developments in

45400-430: The return of the academic Bernard Coard , Bishop's childhood friend, to Grenada. While studying in England, Coard developed links with the British Communist Party ; teaching in Trinidad, he was also very close to the Jamaican communists. Even before his final return, Coard organized introductory courses in Marxism during his stay in the country. Installed again in Grenada in September 1976, Coard played an important role in

45627-432: The ruling parties hold Marxism–Leninism as their official ideology, although they give it different interpretations in terms of practical policy. Marxism–Leninism is also the ideology of anti-revisionist, Hoxhaist, Maoist, and neo-Stalinist communist parties worldwide. The anti-revisionists criticise some rule of the communist states by claiming that they were state capitalist countries ruled by revisionists . Although

45854-505: The secret police NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) to rise above the law and the GPU (State Political Directorate) to use political violence to eliminate any person who might be a threat, whether real, potential, or imagined. As an administrator, Stalin governed the Soviet Union by controlling the formulation of national policy, but he delegated implementation to subordinate functionaries. Such freedom of action allowed local communist functionaries much discretion to interpret

46081-433: The situation. The PRG quickly sent a request to the United States for economic and military aid, which remained unanswered; the new regime wished above all to protect itself against an attempt at a comeback by Gairy and Bishop announced that he will request arms from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Venezuela: the Grenadian Prime Minister tried in particular, before to publicize his contacts with Cuba, to assess

46308-506: The split was finalised by 1963. The Italian Communist Party was mainly influenced by Antonio Gramsci , who gave a more democratic implication than Lenin's for why workers remained passive. A key difference between Maoism and other forms of Marxism–Leninism is that peasants should be the bulwark of the revolutionary energy, which is led by the working class. Three common Maoist values are revolutionary populism , pragmatism, and dialectics . According to Rachel Walker, "Marxism–Leninism"

46535-430: The stage of "socialist orientation". The regime's repressive tendencies increased over the months. People's Law No. 8, promulgated shortly after the seizure of power, allowed the preventive internment of any person "suspected of presenting a threat to public security". In April 1979, Grenada had 80 political prisoners, the majority of them former collaborators of Gairy. In the months that followed, two events contributed to

46762-430: The successful October Revolution in Russia had facilitated the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and revolutions and interventions in Hungary (1918–1920) which produced the First Hungarian Republic and the Hungarian Soviet Republic . In Berlin, the German government aided by Freikorps units fought and defeated the Spartacist uprising which began as a general strike . In Munich, the local Freikorps fought and defeated

46989-441: The summit of the Non-Aligned Movement which he attended in India, to rush back to the country to put the armed forces on alert. After this episode, the Grenadian Prime Minister was forced to recognize the untenable long-term nature of poor relations with the United States, particularly due to Grenada's dependence on tourism from the United States and Canada; the construction of the new airport, still in progress and intended to revive

47216-433: The supporters of Maurice Bishop, announced his resignation, but other information presented him as still being in power. Fidel Castro, without interfering in Grenadian affairs, made his concerns known. The USSR, for its part, remained in suspense, its ambassador on the spot apparently content to ask which, Bishop or Coard, is "the more Marxist". Supporters of Maurice Bishop in the NJM apparatus mobilized: Kenrick Radix organized

47443-413: The territorial integrity of the Soviet Union and the political integrity of Stalin's model of a Marxist–Leninist state, when the Nazis were initially welcomed as liberators by the anti-communist and nationalist populations in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic . The anti-Soviet nationalists' collaboration with

47670-413: The time, orthodox Marxists claimed that Russia was ripe for the development of capitalism, not yet for socialism. Lenin advocated the need of the development of a large corps of technical intelligentsia to assist the industrial development of Russia and advance the Marxist economic stages of development as it had too few technical experts at the time. In that vein, Lenin explained it as follows: "Our poverty

47897-511: The weeks that followed: Bishop, who considered joint leadership untenable, feared being assassinated by the faction led by Coard and his wife Phyllis. Maurice Bishop, accompanied by Unison Whiteman and George Louison, then traveled to Czechoslovakia and Hungary to obtain more economic aid from the Eastern Bloc. After a detour to Cuba on his return trip, he arrived in Grenada on October 8, and discovered that he could no longer enter his official residence. The Grenadian Prime Minister then believed that

48124-559: The world. With that, Stalin's application of Marxism–Leninism to the situation of the Soviet Union became Stalinism , the official state ideology until his death in 1953. In Marxist political discourse, Stalinism, denoting and connoting the theory and praxis of Stalin, has two usages, namely praise of Stalin by Marxist–Leninists who believe Stalin successfully developed Lenin's legacy, and criticism of Stalin by Marxist–Leninists and other Marxists who repudiate Stalin's political purges, social-class repressions and bureaucratic terrorism. As

48351-437: Was also locked up with him. On 14 October, Selwyn Strachan, Minister of Mobilization, went to the offices of the Free West Indian newspaper and announced that the Prime Minister was dismissed and that Bernard Coard now led the country. The news spread immediately and the entire population soon became aware of the crisis. The confusion was then extreme in Grenada: Bernard Coard, in an attempt to repair Strachan's blunder and calm

48578-448: Was considered by his supporters as the symbol of the successful black man and still retained popularity among Grenadian opinion. During the 1976 legislative elections, the New Jewel Movement formed a coalition, the Popular Alliance, with the Grenada National Party of former Prime Minister Herbert Blaize. During the election, the NJM, which managed to obtain a leading place in the coalition, obtained three seats, compared with two for its ally,

48805-483: Was created after Vladimir Lenin 's death by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, continuing to be the official state ideology after de-Stalinisation and of other Marxist–Leninist states, the basis for elements of Marxism–Leninism predate this. The philosophy of Marxism–Leninism originated as the pro-active, political praxis of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in realising political change in Tsarist Russia. Lenin's leadership transformed

49032-440: Was hailed to be a historical necessity by Marxist–Leninists. Moreover, the introduction of the proletarian dictatorship was advocated and classes deemed hostile were to be repressed. In the 1920s, it was first defined and formulated by Joseph Stalin based on his understanding of orthodox Marxism and Leninism . In 1934, Karl Radek suggested the formulation Marxism–Leninism–Stalinism in an article in Pravda to stress

49259-560: Was in the control of localities, often with local leaders interpreting the policies in a way that served themselves best. This abuse of power by local leaders exacerbated the violent purges and terror campaigns carried out by Stalin against members of the party deemed to be traitors. With the Great Purge (1936–1938), Stalin rid himself of internal enemies in the party and rid the Soviet Union of any alleged socially dangerous and counterrevolutionary person who might have offered legitimate political opposition to Marxism–Leninism. Stalin allowed

49486-415: Was one of disillusionment in the Bolshevik party over Lenin's leadership, with members opposing him for scandals involving his expropriations and methods of raising money for the party. This political defeat was aggravated by Tsar Nicholas II 's political reformations of Imperial Russian government. In practise, the formalities of political participation (the electoral plurality of a multi-party system with

49713-525: Was replaced with proletarian internationalism , by way of which Khrushchev re-committed the Soviet Union to permanent revolution to realise world communism . In that geopolitical vein, Khrushchev presented de-Stalinisation as the restoration of Leninism as the state ideology of the Soviet Union. In the 1950s, the de-Stalinisation of the Soviet Union was ideological bad news for the People's Republic of China because Soviet and Russian interpretations and applications of Leninism and orthodox Marxism contradicted

49940-476: Was repressed, especially minority religious groups. Education was transformed. Under Lenin, the education system allowed relaxed discipline in schools that became based upon Marxist theory, but Stalin reversed this in 1934 with a conservative approach taken with the reintroduction of formal learning, the use of examinations and grades, the assertion of full authority of the teacher and the introduction of school uniforms. Art and culture became strictly regulated under

50167-400: Was said to have been ready to organize elections; Chambers would also have, on this occasion, encouraged him to release political prisoners. In September 1983, an extraordinary session of the NJM governing bodies was convened at the request of Home Secretary Liam James. Several young executives strongly attacked Maurice Bishop, whom they accuse, among other things, of being incapable of providing

50394-498: Was signed in 1981. Cuba helped Grenada in particular to build a new airport intended to develop tourism on the island. Several hundred Cuban aid workers, most of them who came to help with the construction of the airport, settled on the island; a large number of them were also reservists of the Cuban Armed Forces and had military training. Cuba then installed a contingent of active military personnel in Grenada as well as agents of its security services. In addition to its alliance with Cuba,

50621-411: Was state-owned, its control by the PRG amounted to a status quo. The situation was different concerning the written press, owned by private capital: from the month of September 1979, Bishop accused various newspapers, including the conservative publication Torchlight, of engaging in "acts of destabilization". The government, therefore, began to destroy the opposition press, giving the New Jewel Movement

50848-406: Was supposed to make it possible to establish the lists, was never promulgated. Popular after its takeover, the New Jewel Movement could probably have secured an electoral victory, but the PRG refrained from organizing the promised elections, subsequently refusing to organize a vote. The Grenada National Party, the NJM's coalition partner, was not banned but was prevented from functioning normally, with

51075-440: Was taken as example by Marxist–Leninists in other countries; according to the Great Russian Encyclopedia , this text became the foundation of the philosophy of Marxism–Leninism. In 1938, Stalin's official textbook History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) popularised Marxism–Leninism . The internationalism of Marxism–Leninism was expressed in supporting revolutions in other countries, initially through

51302-443: Was taken over without firing a shot and Maurice Bishop was able to launch his appeal to the population, announcing the seizure of power by the revolutionary army. The executives of Eric Gairy's regime were, for the most part, easily captured; only Gairy's right-hand man, Derek Knight, managed to flee the country aboard a canoe. The insurrection resulted in only two deaths – a senior officer shot dead while drawing his weapon, as well as

51529-459: Was the Prime Minister. The new government was dominated by the New Jewel Movement, but included members of the country's business bourgeoisie, including those close to the Grenada National Party. Bernard Coard became the finance minister; he was subsequently appointed deputy prime minister. Executives of the Grenada United Labor Party were not subject to any particular persecution, with only a minority of them being removed from their responsibilities in

#118881