Ralph Gonsalves then and now

Dec 04, 2025 Letters

---

Dear Editor,

I join with others who may have commented on the colour full political journey of former PM of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves ending with his mammoth electoral defeat.

If there are any Guyanese who would have known and know Ralph Gonsalves historically and politically it would be first and foremost, Cheddi Jagan, then Moses Nagamootoo and this writer. Should there be any other, please step forward.

The PPP has always paid keen interest to political developments in Caribbean countries in this case, St Vincent and the Grenadines at a time when fresh, young and vibrant political activists had emerged on the Vincentian political scene and were openly inclined to scientific political thought and action.

Those Vincentians were to be found at that time in an organisation called the United People’s Movement (UPM) of St Vincent and the Grenadines. The UPM was established in 1979 as a leftist alliance of three organisations one led by Gonsalves.

The (UPM) was a socialist-oriented political party and was first led by Renwick Rose a committed Rastafarian and founder of The Black Liberation Action Committee (BLAC).

Gonsalves emerged in the corridors of West Indian academia in the early 1970’s.

He was educated at UWI Jamaica, the University of Manchester (England) and the Makerere Institute of Social Research (Uganda). He was a former lecturer at UWI Jamaica and Barbados. Young Caribbean intellectuals who emerged at that time and under those circumstances would have had the privilege of meeting and conversing with Cheddi Jagan.

Jagan had embraced Marxist philosophy long before Gonsalves did, however, Gonsalves eventually come around to adopting his own variation of Marxism; His was democratic socialism’ ‘Left Nationalism and anti-imperialism’. This was after he broke from the UPM and formed his own ‘Movement for National Unity’ and brokered an alliance with the St Vincent Labour Party, the oldest political party on the island. His party later joined the Socialist International.

Progressive forward-thinking Vincentians at that time, participated in the first meeting of the Caribbean Anti-imperialist conference held on September 1, 1972 in Guyana. Resolutions were passed at the meeting calling for a Democratic Anti-imperialist Caribbean Union; on Civil Liberties; Racism and Racial Discrimination; Ending the Blockade of Cuba; Black Power and Free and Fair Elections.

Five years later, progressive Vincentians participated in what was called a Consultative Meeting of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Groups of the English- Speaking Caribbean held in April 1977 in Guyana. According to a communiqué issued following the meeting, ‘The meeting carried out a scientific-realistic assessment of the political, economic and social situation in the region stressing the continuing danger posed by US imperialism to the progress and well-being of the working people of the Caribbean; the meeting noted the necessity for countries individually and on a regional basis to ensure the practice of the fullest democracy; it pledged to struggle for the incorporation into the Caricom Treaty a Convention on Human Rights.’

The Vincentians were invited by Jagan to participate in what became known as the Caribbean Anti-Imperialist Movement which was established after several meetings held in Guyana. I do not recall Gonsalves attending any of those meetings but Rose and others certainly did.

Gonsalves first seminal work was an essay published in a booklet entitled ‘The Non-Capitalist Path of Development’ (1981). According to Gonsalves, ‘The theoretical issues raised in the booklet are as relevant as ever and can surely assist in deepening our understanding of those and other recent developments in Africa and the Caribbean.’ He added that the essay ‘has drawn heavily from many distinguished contemporary authors including C.Y.Thomas,’…among other Soviet scholars and experts on the subject.

In his book ‘The Caribbean- Whose Backyard?’ (1984) Cheddi Jagan quotes extensively from ‘The Spectre of Imperialism: The Case of the Caribbean’ an academic paper written by Gonsalves.

In the light of his colour full historical journey ending as it did on November 27, 2025 it would appear that while Gonsalves stuck firmly to his social democratic, left nationalist and anti-imperialist convictions, he strayed somewhat from political practice; not keeping in mind that ‘politics is a concentrated form of economics.’ As his son Camilo Gonsalves put it; “The priorities of the people who I was elected to serve and those of the party and government were not aligned and this was the result of that misalignment.”

Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee

---

• electoral defeat, Letters, PPP, Ralph Gonsalves

---