Grenada: Noncapitalist Path and the Derailment of a Social Democratic Revolution

Abstract

This chapter argues that the Grenada Revolution did not meet the requirements for a social revolution with a working class character. Grenada, like most other Caribbean societies, simply lacked the foundation—material and otherwise—to build socialism, as there did not exist the deep inner structures of capital in science, technology, industry, finance, production and labor to achieve and/or sustain a social revolution. The crisis and collapse of the “Grenada Revolution” and the roles played by the “Grenada revolutionaries” relative to how they attempted to apply certain concepts from Marxism-Leninism and from Soviet ideology on the “Non-Capitalist” path to development had a great deal to do with the authoritarian political culture that survived British colonialism and imperialism through decolonization and independence. Marxism-Leninism complicated the process but was not necessary for the Grenada revolutionary experiment to collapse.