The Grenadian revolutionary experience and demise will be a source of controversy for years to come. Did it fall or was it pushed? Sandford’s contribution to the debate is disappointing. Highly critical of biased (i.e., pro-People’s Revolutionary Government, PRG) commentaries, his own shows clearly the imprint of institutional preference. More serious are the sweeping statements (the revolution was a “colossal failure”) and unsubstantiated claims dictated by conspiracy theory. Very little is conceded to the revolution. Of the social programs, only the adult education campaign had any success. The economy was a disaster, but there is little analysis of the effects of increasingly successful U.S. pressure and denial tactics. Scant mention is made of U.S. military pressure. Only six miles separated Grenada from the warships in one instance of well-publicized naval maneuvers.
Political bias is one thing: omission is another. A critical weakness of the book is the complete absence of any mention, let alone discussion, of the theory of non-capitalist development, the tenets of which so informed the PRG leadership. Given the extensive literature on the subject from both Moscow and the West, this is astonishing. Sandford’s ignorance logically leads him to stress the role of personality in the implosion within the New Jewel Movement (NJM): he is “not sure’’ about the extent of ideological differences. Indeed, he ducks the issue as the book, he stresses, focuses on how the regime stayed in power. But its revolutionary legitimacy, in the regime’s eyes, rested on the theory, and its different tactical interpretations led to its downfall.
One could go on. There is “compelling circumstantial evidence” that Guyana and Cuba participated in the March 1979 insurrection against the corrupt Gairy regime, but all the author offers is hearsay five years later. Arab aid was “extensive,” but PRG spokesmen said the opposite. The new airport was to be used for Soviet and Cuban military purposes, and here the evidence is a handwritten sentence in 1980 by a youthful NJM member.
But Sandford is correct in making clear the PRG’s deliberate spurning and distortion of initial U.S. overtures after the insurrection. He is also right in arguing the unsuitability of the Leninist vanguard principle to small West Indian societies with a long history of Western democratic ideals and open politics. The NJM was authoritarian and arrogant in justifying its elitism by virtue of the backwardness of the people, and its abuse of human rights was a disgrace. In the end, however, Sandford should have used his acknowledged skills as a historian to more even-handed advantage. He had, as a Foreign Service official, privileged access to far more captured documents than have been published. Interpretation and preconceived orthodoxy are poor bedfellows.
