A REVOLUTION THAT COULD HAVE WORKED

...by the time U.S...

...Health-education projects in schools, workplaces, and new local health centers were getting started when the invasion took place...

...But the reasons behind the October coup are not the reasons for the U.S...

...The dominant theories of Third World development would have been challenged, and a way to avoid economic subservience to Americans, Europeans, and Soviets would have been demonstrated...

...The White House has pledged to "revitalize the private sector," but what that will mean in practice is not clear...

...In the wake of the U.S...

...Hot school lunches and free milk were being distributed to children throughout the country...

...Thousands of Grena-dians took to the streets to celebrate the coup...

...One thing does seem clear, though: If Grenada—an island the size of Martha's Vineyard with a population that would barely fill the Rose Bowl—could have achieved its government's desired degree of economic strength, a precedent would have been set...

...Bishop and his New Jewel party embarked on an ambitious but cautious socialist program, inspired by the late reggae star Bob Marley no less than by Karl Marx...

...Before Bishop came to power, Grenada actually imported much of its fish from Canada because of a shortage of boats...

...The Bishop government made significant strides to advance the status of women, mandating extended maternity leave and equal pay for equal work...

...At the time of the invasion, work was being finished on a prefabricated housing plant Stephen Zunes, a political scientist at Beacon College, was one of twenty-two demonstrators recently arrested for sitting-in at House Speaker Thomas O'Neill's Boston office to protest the invasion of Grenada...

...For example, the government was testing bio-gas digesters, which turn such waste material as animal manure into fuel for cooking and heating...

...Real wages climbed steadily and unemployment dropped from 49 to 14 per cent...

...invasion believe President Reagan was on the mark when he called Bishop's assassins "thugs...

...The National Cooperative Development Agency provided low-interest loans to a growing network of cooperatives which sprang up in baking, construction, shoemaking, plumbing, and other trades...

...We don't know yet, though even the most severe critics of the U.S...

...The boats, expected to cost only $320 each once full-scale production began, could have been marketed on neighboring islands and would have expanded Grenada's own fishing and transport fleet...

...In four years, while most Caribbean nations were squeezed by the worldwide recession, Grenada achieved a 9 per cent cumulative growth rate...

...Bishop's government reduced the power of large landowners and multinational corporations, though the private sector remained strong...

...The project was run by the Groundwork Institute, an appropriate technology center based in Berkeley, California...

...Before the revolution, more than 40 per cent of the island's food was imported...

...Now, health care is likely to deteriorate because Cuban doctors and other medical personnel have been expelled by the American occupation forces...

...To build economic self-reliance, the new government worked to reduce imports, diversify and expand local industry, and increase domestic food production...

...invasion, the fate of these and other creative efforts is uncertain...

...Grenada was experimenting with grassroots democracy, an experiment made possible by the size of the country...

...A REVOLUTION THAT COULD HAVE WORKED BY STEPHEN ZUNES The revolution in Grenada was an accessible one, occurring nearby, spoken in our own language, and influenced more by New Left politics and the black power movement than by Soviet-style communism...

...So what went wrong...

...A government-sponsored literacy campaign pushed the literacy rate from a respectable 85 per cent of the population to 98 per cent—a level that compared favorably with the rate found in most industrialized nations...

...invasion...

...In a quick and almost bloodless coup, Gairy was replaced by Maurice Bishop, a young activist attorney whose father had been killed by the Gairy regime...

...The number of secondary schools tripled, and scores of Grenadians received scholarships for study abroad...

...capable of producing 500 units per year...

...Laboratory and x-ray facilities were also significantly improved...

...The latter may be explained by Bishop's proud proclamation that "Grenada is determined to pursue an independent and nonaligned path in this part of the world that U.S...

...Asocial standard was being set as well...

...administrations consider their own backyard...

...In 1981, thanks to emergency sanitary measures implemented by the government, Grenada avoided the Dengue Fever epidemic that swept the Caribbean...

...And it expressed interest in developing hydro and wind power...

...Under the New Jewel Movement, the health-care system began to emphasize preventive medicine...

...The government also encouraged initiatives in integrated pest management-control of cocoa beetles and other insects without resort to dangerous pesticides...

...The rank and file could recall the leadership by secret ballot in annual or biennial elections...

...Public loans were made available on generous terms to small- and medium-sized businesses...

...The number of operating rooms tripled and the doctor-to-patient ratio was doubled...

...Another small American firm, People's Windward Islands Shipwrights, Ltd., trained Grenadians in the construction of boat hulls made from local materials...

...For the first time, medical care was free for all Grenadians...

...It explored economic models radically different from the centralized, capital-intensive paths taken by both the socialist and capitalist worlds...

...The impetus for many of these changes was provided by the charismatic, extremely popular Maurice Bishop...

...In addition to mounting such basic reforms, Grenada displayed an openness to decentralized, "appropriate" technology...

...The government also made loans for housing repair and construction, emphasizing the use of low-cost local materials...

...Women were encouraged to enter nontraditional fields, and many assumed top governmental posts...

...Though Bishop never held promised parliamentary elections, Grenada was not slipping into totalitarian rule: Until last October, eight independent trade unions and several mass organizations—representing farmers, women, and youth, among others—shared governance with the New Jewel Movement...

...The leaders of these organizations, considered to be members of the government, were represented on state bodies...

...On March 13, 1979, the New Jewel Movement (the name stands for Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation) seized power from Sir Eric Gairy, the despotic and eccentric Prime Minister best known for his murderous secret police—the so-called Mongoose Gang—and for his obsession with UFOs...

...troops sloshed ashore last October, imported foods had dropped to 28 per cent...

...The individuals who launched the coup against Bishop may have been hardline Stalinists or simply ambitious politicians who resented Bishop's popularity...