New International no 6: The Second Assassination of Maurice Bishop

by Steve Clark

Reviews the accomplishments of the 1979 83 revolution in the Caribbean island of Grenada. Explains the roots of the 1983 coup that led to the murder of revolutionary leader Maurice Bishop, and to the destruction of the workers and farmers government by a Stalinist political faction within the governing New Jewel Movement. Also in New International no. 6: Washington's 50-year Domestic Contra Operation by Larry Seigle Land, Labor, and the Canadian Revolution by Michel Dugré Renewal or Cuba's Rectification Process, two speeches by Fidel Castro Notes. Now in an upgraded edition with index and enlarged type. Also available in French.

462 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Dad, journalist & media consultant. Sunday Times bestselling author. Books include Only Fools & Horses: The Official Inside Story.

Reviews

[Marc Lichtman]

I'm disappointed at the number of people reading and being taken in by Bernard Coard attempt to rewrite the facts of the overturn of the Grenada Revolution. This doesn't directly answer that book, because it was written in 1987 while Coard was in jail. But Coard's arguments haven't changed much, although the form has--he now attempts to present himself as what in the US would be called "Woke," although he doesn't use that term. The main difference was that at the time Coard was trying to blame the whole thing on Maurice Bishop's press secretary, Don Rojas, who I used to know. But Don became too well known for Coard to blame. He headed a writer's group based in Eastern Europe, then wrote for the 'Militant' newspaper, worked for WBAI, the Pacifica radio station in New York, worked for the NAACP.... So now Coard blames everything on a nameless Indian, not one from the Caribbean.

If people want to learn from the Grenada Revolution, this is what they should be reading. Careful analysis by a genuine Marxist, based on facts, not subjective "feelings" like Coard's book. Read them both, along with Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada Revolution and Its Overthrow, 1979-83. which has an introduction by Steve Clark, as well as the interview Clark did with Bishop in Grenada. Make up your own mind, don't let anyone lead you by the nose.

Incidentally, Goodreads has confused this Steve Clark with someone else having the same name.

[Richmond Apore]

If Smith, in his book (The Assassination of Maurice Bishop), gave us the sorely needed historical background, then Steve Clark, in this work, delivers the equally crucial ideological clarity. Together, both accounts are intellectually indispensable. But where Smith lays the facts bare, Clark takes it a step further — directly confronting the perfidious Bernard Coard, who, having already orchestrated Bishop’s physical elimination, now seeks to finish the job posthumously. Through the veneer of self-serving, so-called books, Coard attempts to “kill off” Bishop’s legacy just as definitively as he did the man himself on October 13th, 1983. Clark picks up precisely where Coard left off — not with bullets this time, but with rebuttal, laying bare the sheer audacity and unearned temerity of a man who, after all these years, still dares to rewrite history as if he were not the same person who’s hubris and unchecked Stalinist proclivities led the Grenadian Revolution asunder.

I’ve ever heard the echoes of Coard being a Stalinist or having led a Stalinist cult, as Fidel Castro even said of him. Finally, per Clark’s account here, I now fully appreciate Coard’s perfect union with Stalinism. The obvious disdain, nearing on paternalism, for the working masses of Grenada. His insistence that every NJM comrade and cadre bend the knee to so-called “democratic centralism,” which indirectly meant fidelity to his faction’s majority in the Central Committee. And to the very final act — or better said, final analysis — of his Stalinist application unto the Grenadian Revolution: that he, Coard, and his clique believed Maurice Bishop, by daring not to give into their demands, had rightfully forfeited the right to his very life. And for the masses? “Those hapless sheep,” who didn’t need to have a say in who led their own revolutionary process, and were only there to be “directed” and acted upon. Thus, even outside of the inconceivable act of murdering Bishop, the Cordites could care less about the reaction of the masses to that, or even care what their position on such was.

[Christian Gurdin]

Important intervention soon after the demise of the Grenada Revolution. Definitely plays into the conspiracy readings however. But it has a useful bibliography of the CC minutes