The Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ) was a Marxist-Leninist political party in Jamaica. WPJ was founded on 17 December 1978 by Trevor Munroe, along with Elean Thomas and others. [1] Trevor Munroe, a Rhodes scholar from Oxford University, served as its general secretary. The forerunner of WPJ was the Workers Liberation League. [2]
WPJ was a "critical ally" of the People's National Party (PNP) of Michael Manley. [2] With WPJ backing, the PNP government developed closer relations to Cuba, which irritated the United States. [3] However, in the late 1970s, the WPJ participated in Jamaican popular resistance to fiscal controls imposed on the country by the International Monetary Fund and accepted by Manley. [4] The 1980 elections resulted in a victory of the rightist Jamaica Labour Party. Manley's association with the communist WPJ may have contributed to his defeat. [3]
The WPJ youth organization, Young Communist League of WPJ, was a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
By 1992, the WPJ was defunct. [2]
The Caribbean Island of Jamaica was initially inhabited in approximately 600 AD or 650 AD by the Redware people, often associated with redware pottery. By roughly 800 AD, a second wave of inhabitants occurred by the Arawak tribes, including the Tainos, prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1494. Early inhabitants of Jamaica named the land "Xaymaca", meaning "land of wood and water". The Spanish enslaved the Arawak, who were ravaged further by diseases that the Spanish brought with them. Early historians believe that by 1602, the Arawak-speaking Taino tribes were extinct. However, some of the Taino escaped into the forested mountains of the interior, where they mixed with runaway African slaves, and survived free from first Spanish, and then English, rule.
Michael Norman Manley was a Jamaican politician who served as the fourth prime minister of Jamaica from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992. Manley championed a democratic socialist program, and has been described as a populist. He remains one of Jamaica's most popular prime ministers.
The People's National Party (PNP) is a social democratic political party in Jamaica, founded in 1938 by Norman Washington Manley who served as party president until his death in 1969. It holds 14 of the 63 seats in the House of Representatives, as 96 of the 227 local government divisions. The party is democratic socialist by constitution.
Sir William Alexander Clarke Bustamante was a Jamaican politician and labour leader, who, in 1962, became the first prime minister of Jamaica.
The Jamaica Labour Party is one of the two major political parties in Jamaica, the other being the People's National Party (PNP). While its name might suggest that it is a social democratic party, the JLP is actually a conservative party.
Edward Philip George Seaga was a Jamaican politician and record producer. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Jamaica, from 1980 to 1989, and the leader of the Jamaica Labour Party from 1974 to 2005. He served as leader of the opposition from 1974 to 1980, and again from 1989 until January 2005.
Clancy Eccles was a Jamaican ska and reggae singer, songwriter, arranger, promoter, record producer and talent scout. Known mostly for his early reggae works, he brought a political dimension to this music. His house band was known as The Dynamites.
Allan George Richard Byfield was a Jamaican school teacher and politician. He was a senator of the West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962, and president of the Senate of Jamaica from 1972 to 1980. In the late 1970s he was minister of education.
The Trade Union Congress is a general trade union in Jamaica. Initially organised as a trade union council to be the labour wing of the People's National Party (PNP) in 1943, the organisation split in 1952 with the formation of the National Workers Union. The TUC was a founding member of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions.
The Communist Party of Jamaica was a political party in Jamaica, founded in 1975. At the time of the foundation of the party, when the 'Preparatory Committee for a Communist Party of Jamaica' was formed, the Workers Liberation League decided to stay out of it. Instead, the WLL founded the Workers Party of Jamaica three years later. The two parties existed parallel to each other, but the WPJ was larger than the CPJ.
The Progressive Youth Organisation of Guyana is a youth organisation in Guyana, the youth wing of the People's Progressive Party. The membership of Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO) is predominantly Indo-Guyanese, like its mother party.
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
Richard Hart was a Jamaican historian, solicitor and politician. He was a founding member of the People's National Party (PNP) and one of the pioneers of Marxism in Jamaica. He played an important role in Jamaican politics in the years leading up to Independence in 1962. He subsequently was based in Guyana for two years, before relocating to London, England, in 1965, working as a solicitor and co-founding the campaigning organisation Caribbean Labour Solidarity in 1974. He went on to serve as attorney-general in Grenada under the People's Revolutionary Government in 1983. He spent the latter years of his life in the UK, where he died in Bristol.
The Colony of Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom on 6 August 1962. In Jamaica, this date is celebrated as Independence Day, a national holiday.
Noel Newton "Crab" Nethersole was a Jamaican Rhodes Scholar, cricket player and administrator, lawyer, politician, economist, and Jamaica's Minister of Finance from 1955 to 1959.
Norman Washington Manley was a Jamaican statesman who served as the first and only Premier of Jamaica. A Rhodes Scholar, Manley became one of Jamaica's leading lawyers in the 1920s. Manley was an advocate of universal suffrage, which was granted by the British colonial government to the colony in 1944.
Elean Roslyn Thomas was a Jamaican poet, novelist, journalist and activist. She was active in the struggle for women's rights in the Caribbean and the movement for Jamaican national independence, as well as working in Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe and Africa. She was married (1988–1998) to human rights barrister Anthony Gifford.
The Jamaican political conflict is a long-standing feud between right-wing and left-wing elements in the country, often exploding into violence. The Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) and the People's National Party (PNP) have fought for control of the island for years and the rivalry has encouraged urban warfare in Kingston. Each side believes the other to be controlled by foreign elements; the JLP is said to be backed by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the PNP is said to have been backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Phyllis Claire Macpherson-Russell OD, OJ was a Jamaican politician for the People's National Party (PNP). She was rapporteur for the World Conference on Women, 1975.
Anthony Michael "Tony" Spaulding was a Jamaican attorney-at-law and politician. A political firebrand, he served as a vice president of the People's National Party (PNP), Member of Parliament for the Saint Andrew Southern constituency, and Minister of Housing under Prime Minister Michael Manley.