“Forward Ever, Backwards Never!” – Maurice Bishop
Photo: Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), Maurice Bishop (Grenada), Fidel Castro (Cuba)
The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation, or New Jewel Movement (NJM) led the Grenadian Revolution.
Maurice Bishop and members of the central committee of the New Jewel Movement were assassinated by fellow party leader Bernard Coard, who disagreed with the direction of the Grenadian Revolution.
Ultraleft ideology and violence usurped the New Jewel Movement and gave United States President Ronald Reagon impetus to invade Grenada.
The United States in 1983 had recently lost in Vietnam and suffered from attacks in Beirut, Lebanon. The United States was in a recession. Reagan used Grenada as a call to arms against the Soviet Union and to rally political forces within the United States.
Maurice Bishop noted, that although Grenada was a small country, its importance laid in that the population spoke English. Speaking English and being able to connect socialism into the United States and Commonwealth countries put a target on the New Jewel Movement.
The Party of Communists USA remembers the words of Comrade Maurice Bishop, “Forward Ever – Backwards Never!”