I am researching the Grenada Revolution (1979-1983) and trying to understand what happened in October 1983. The M-L revolutionary leader of the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG), Maurice Bishop, was deposed by deputy Prime Minister & Marxist Bernard Coard and later assassinated by PRG General Hudson Austin. This turbulence was the excuse the US empire needed to invade Grenada and reestablish bourgeois dictatorship.

Explanations about this counterrevolution are hard to come by. My first thought was CIA, but according to Tim Wheeler, “The PRG government was overthrown by an ultra-left faction described by Fidel Castro as a “Pol Pot” cult…” (1)

Fidel’s own words about Coard & Grenada:

“Bishop had great popular support and was well liked by the population. But Coard and his group — who belonged to one of the organizations that joined with Bishop to form the New Jewel Movement — didn’t work with the masses. That is, the Coard group didn’t work with the masses; it worked among the party members — who were a small group of about 200 — and with the cadres of the army and the Ministry of the Interior. This fifth column, this undermining of Bishop’s authority, coalesced at a moment when Bishop — though he had the support of the immense majority of the people — lost the majority within the party, both in the Central Committee and among the membership. This was the fruit of the conspiracy led by Coard and his group. It explains the senseless and mad step of arresting Bishop and, even worse, of firing upon the people and assassinating Bishop. It was that unfortunate event that made it possible for the Reagan administration to perpetrate the cynical and opportunistic invasion of the country.” (2)

Is Castro’s take accurate? Does anyone have additional insight?

(1) https://peoplesworld.org/article/fred-mark-fighter-for-equality-peace-socialism-dies-in-baltimore/

(2) https://themilitant.com/2022/12/31/counterrevolutionary-coup-led-to-us-invasion-of-grenada/