The People’s Progressive Party of Guyana: 1950, 75th anniversary history

Dear Editor,
On November 6, 1946, the stage was set for the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) to achieve its objectives: to provide a platform for the struggles against colonialism in British Guiana; advocate for social, economic, and political justice for the people residing in this then British colony; as well as to form a political party.
The PAC aimed to address the need for a political organisation that represented the interests of workers. Consequently, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Ashton Chase and Jocelyn Hubbard emerged as prominent activists within the Labour Movement.
How prophetic it was that the founding of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) was announced on January 1, 1950! This date suggests, at the very least, a promise and a buoyant spirit of change or innovation embodied by the party leaders. More importantly, as we would later discover, the party’s founding on such an auspicious date foreshadowed cataclysmic change, particularly in Guyana, if not the entire English-speaking Caribbean.
For one thing, the PPP was the first authentic political party to emerge in British Guiana, the name of the former British colony at that time. Additionally, the vision and expectations of pre-1950 social and labour organisations such as the Man Power Citizens’ Association (MPCA), the British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU), the League of Coloured People (LCP), the British Guiana Indian Association (BGIA), and the Labour Party were too narrow or limited in scope to create a widespread impact. These organisations primarily focused on the personal interests of their leaders, the specific concerns of their groups, or on improving working conditions and securing better pay for their members.
The mandate of the PPP, on the other hand, was utterly revolutionary: to represent the interests of the entire Guyanese population, and dedicate the party to what many had then thought was the alarming and audacious proposition of transforming the British colony from its centuries-old dependent colonial status into a free, independent, and self-respecting nation.
Not only did the PPP achieve an unprecedented and historic political victory in 1953, but this also seemed to validate their prophecy. The party went on to win subsequent elections in 1957 and 1961; however, as we shall also see, these victories — or rather, the events that followed them, such as the party’s “defeat” in the 1964 elections — led to further unprecedented changes that were neither revolutionary in a positive sense, nor, unfortunately, beneficial in any way.
The historical background to all this is that, after the first European settlement of (Guiana) Guyana in the early seventeenth century, the original inhabitants – or First Nation peoples indigenous to the American continent – were pushed back into the southern interior of the territory. This area was dominated by the Amazon forest, and was surrounded by neighbours such as Venezuela to the west, Suriname to the east, and Brazil to the south.
Meanwhile, European settlers, primarily the Dutch, established plantations along the rivers of Guyana and in the northern coastal areas adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean. Following a significant rivalry, during which the territory changed hands multiple times among European colonial powers, the Dutch Guyanese colonies of Demerara-Essequibo and Berbice were ultimately ceded to the British in 1802, and were merged into a single colony called British Guiana in 1831.
The formation of the PPP in 1950 correctly anticipated the end of nearly three hundred years of continuous European colonial rule, which was finally realised on May 26, 1966 when British Guiana became the independent nation of Guyana.
For consistency, the term ‘Guyana’ is used throughout this event, particularly in references to the territory during the pre-1966 colonial period.
Guyana is the only English-speaking country on the South American continent. However, despite its 83,000 square miles, it has an estimated population of only 780,000. One reason is the emigration of tens of thousands of Guyanese migrants, especially to the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.

Yours sincerely,
Sherwood Clarke