SARGASSO


Revolution was allied to international socialism, Cuba,
and, however marginally, the Soviet Union, the Caribbean
region as a whole, through its unwillingness or inability
to solve its own problems and by "inviting" a U.S.-led
military solution to a regional problem, has now
demonstrated its potential as a East-West battlefield.
The political "Age of Innocence," to paraphrase George
Lamming, of the Commonwealth Caribbean is over, and a
new age or--"neo-colonialism" no longer serves--mono-
polistic encampments of state capitalism, in which
Commonwealth Caribbean island-states can be as fully
integrated into the multinational U.S. economy as Puerto
Rico or the Dominican Republic, has begun.

 But wasn't that inevitable? Lewis indicates that
it might have been different, for Grenada: The Jewel
Despoiled covers far more than just the events of
October 1983: it also provides detailed analyses of
the role of each of the main protagonists in the failure
of the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada to
(1) overcome internal conflict, (2) maintain amicable
regional and diplomatic ties, and (3) survive in the
face of early U.S. opposition and later actual invasion
and take-over. If it is true, as Lewis quotes Trevor Farell
as saying, that "Coard gave the Americans the Grenadian
revolution on a platter, and we in the rest of CARICOM
(Caribbean Community), then laid the table for them to eat it up,
then the responsibility for the "tragedy" must be shared
between at least three parties: U. S. imperialism, the
conservative West Indian bourgeoisie, and the ultraleft
faction in Grenada itself. Each is examined in its turn.

 According to Lewis, the internal conflict that wore
the Grenadian Revolution down and eventually tore it
apart was more than the simple melodrama of good against
evil, populism against the secretive Leninist party,
Bishop's Danton against Coard's Robespierre, et cetera.
Certainly there were personal issues than influenced
political ones, but the crucial distinction Lewis makes
is that Bishop, Coard, and their respective factions
became so embroiled in the rhetoric and debate of what
they called "the science," i. e. Marxism-Leninism, and
Stalinist political recriminations that they drifted
dangerously far from the will of theGrenadian people
and began to ignore the duties of governance. According
to Lewis,