New JEWEL Movement

The New JEWEL Movement (NJM) was established on 11 March 1973. The English-language source describes it as an alliance of three organisations, the Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation (JEWEL), the Organization for Revolutionary Education and Liberation (OREL) and the Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP); the Spanish-language source describes it as a union of two, MAP, led by Bishop, and JEWEL. Maurice Bishop, a young lawyer who had returned from studying in England, and Unison Whiteman, the founder of JEWEL, were elected joint coordinating secretaries, and the party manifesto was largely drafted by MAP's leading intellectual Franklyn Harvey, who had been influenced by C. L. R. James. The party newspaper, the New Jewel, carried the motto "Not Just Another Society – But a Just Society".

From 1973 to 1979 the NJM was an opposition party, while Grenadian politics grew increasingly polarised and violent. For the 1976 general election it formed the People's Alliance with the Grenada National Party and the United People's Party, which lost to Prime Minister Eric Gairy's Grenada United Labour Party in an election that international observers considered fraudulent. In the late 1970s the NJM formed the National Liberation Army (NLA), also known as "the 12 Apostles".

On 13 March 1979, while Gairy was visiting the United States, the NJM took the barracks, radio station, government buildings and police stations within hours. Bishop suspended the constitution and announced that the NJM was now a provisional People's Revolutionary Government (PRG), with himself as prime minister, and soon created the People's Revolutionary Army. After the revolution the NJM described itself as a Marxist–Leninist vanguard party but considered itself not yet ready to become a communist party, because it was not led by a proletarian class and the level of education in Marxist–Leninist politics was low. According to the Spanish-language source the government held no elections and produced no new constitution during this period, and the NJM was the only party.

The PRG, whose relations with the United States were strained from the outset, turned to Cuba for aid. More than 600 Cuban construction workers were brought in to build a new international airport at Point Salines in the south, and the NJM worked with Cuba to assist movements such as the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) in Namibia and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador. The Spanish-language source also mentions ties with the Soviet Union, Libya, Syria, North Korea and Eastern European states, and Bishop made an official visit to East Germany in 1982. The United States and several Caribbean countries were concerned about the close ties with Cuba and the possibility that the new airport could serve as a Soviet–Cuban base.

The internal split surfaced in July 1982 when Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bernard Coard resigned from the Political Bureau. Coard advanced associates from the OREL group to key positions in the Central Committee, and in September 1983 his faction proposed that Bishop share power with Coard as co-equal leader, which Bishop rejected. On 13 October Coard took control of the government and placed Bishop under house arrest, setting off demonstrations and strikes across the country, and on 19 October a crowd estimated at 15,000 to 30,000 freed him. When Bishop led the crowd to army headquarters at Fort Rupert, troops from Fort Frederick arrived and fighting broke out in which many civilians were killed; Bishop, Whiteman and six others were lined up against a wall and shot. Hudson Austin formed a military government, but six days later the United States invaded Grenada and overthrew it, and the NJM ceased to exist. In 1986 seventeen people, including Coard and Austin, the "Grenada 17", were convicted.