State Capitalism in Guyana: an Assessment of Burnham's Co-operative Socialist Republic

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
1953 was a watershed year in the political development of Guyana. After centuries of mass struggle, first against colonial slavery and later its modified form, the system of indentured immigrant labour, the twentieth-century national independence movement had succeeded in forcing colonial authorities to hold elections under a system of universal adult suffrage and a constitution that offered what was for that time a relatively high degree of ‘internal self-government’. The previous constitution was the classic crown colony type, in that it provided for a legislature and executive made up mostly of nominated Colonial Office officials, with the ‘elected’ element being elected by the 3 per cent of the population which was then entitled to vote, despite an overall literacy rate of 80 per cent in the country. In the 1953 elections, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) won eighteen of the twenty-four elected seats and formed the first Marxist government to be elected to office, if not power, in the British Empire. However, within 133 days of the election and formation of the government, the Colonial Office intervened forcibly, dissolved the government and suspended the constitution.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: