The Comintern, “Negro Self-Determination” and Black Revolutions in the Caribbean

Abstract

The article discusses the slogan of “Negro self-determination” adopted by the Communist International and the traces of its influence on post-Comintern political transformations in the Caribbean. Particular attention is paid to the establishment of Afro-centric regimes in Haiti and Grenada. It is argued that the events in these two countries after the Second World War bear visible traces of the influence of the pre-war Comintern propaganda. Haiti experienced a regime, which combined Afro-centric and Communist rhetorics with severe anti-communist repression. Grenada experienced a more complex transformation, which started with the “trade union revolution” of 1951 and continued with a short-lived Socialist revolution of 1979 led by the New Jewel Movement. The political transformations in Grenada, crushed as a result of internal fighting and foreign military intervention in 1983, had a significant Caribbean and Afro-centric component, probably the closest to the ideals of the Comintern.