“Who does the planting? Who does the watering? Who does the harvesting? Coffee, cotton, rice, sugar cane, cacao, corn, bananas, vegetables, and all the fruits, who’s going to grow them if we don’t? Yet with all that, we’re poor, we’re miserable, that’s true. But do you know why? Because we don’t know yet what a force we are… Some day, when we get wise to that, we’ll rise up…Then we’ll call a General Assembly and we’ll clear out poverty and plant a new life.” – Jacques Roumain, Masters of the Dew (1944 novel)
Roumain (1906-1944) helped to found the Haitian Communist Party (PCH) in the early 1930s. Another founder, Henri Rosemund, had previously organized fur workers in New York City.
The Haitian masses have long considered communism. They – and all of us – must embrace it now.
Masses in Haiti rebelled against racist US imperialism when it invaded in 1915. In December 1929, amidst the global capitalist crisis, US Marines attacked a protest march in Les Cayes. They killed ten Haitian peasants. Communists in New York and elsewhere, including Caribbean immigrant workers, marched in solidarity.
The PCH was small and not immersed among the rebellious masses. Yet the terrified Haitian rulers suppressed it in 1936.
Again: The communist Popular Socialist Party, formed in 1946, sought power through elections. It, too, was suppressed. But the CIA worried in 1963 that “The communist threat in Haiti is increasing.”
And again: The communist Haitian Workers Party arose in 1966. The Unified Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH) formed in 1968 to take “the path of armed struggle.” A year later, the staunchly anti-communist US-backed Duvalier regime tried to smash it. Hundreds were jailed and tortured. Four leaders were killed. The PUCH survived as an illegal organization. But its leaders soon called for “unity of all progressive forces” and linked the PUCH to the revisionist Soviet Union.
Racist-imperialist occupation. Nationalist resistance. Armed struggle. Brutal suppression. Masses in rebellion, seeking radical alternatives to their miserable lives. This is the history – and the present crisis – of Haiti.
Learn from the Heroic Struggles of the Haitian Masses
The potential for communist revolution has existed in Haiti — despite brutal repression — for close to a century. There was and is a mass base for international, anti-racist working-class unity (versus nationalism). There was and is popular enthusiasm for revolutionary militancy (versus the pacifism of former president Aristide).
Past communist movements have squandered that potential by following an incorrect analysis and program. Some organized for national liberation. Or built illusions about electoral politics. Or abandoned working-class politics for unity with “progressive” exploiters. Or followed the Soviet line of fighting for socialism, mistakenly thinking it a step toward communism instead of another form of capitalism.
The way forward exists today – if communists in Haiti learn from the mistakes, as well as the victories, of the past. If women and men, in Haiti and elsewhere, join and build a mass International Communist Workers’ Party.
Mobilize Now for Our Communist Future
The masses have virtually shut down Haiti for six months with violent protests. The sparks were rampant inflation and government plans for increased fuel taxes. They demand the resignation of President Moise. Again, the Haitian government has responded with bullets.
Haitian workers endure the worst poverty and shortest life expectancy in the Americas. Meanwhile, Moise and his cronies have embezzled some $2.8 billion from PetroCaribe. This fund, part of a now-defunct Venezuelan oil program, was supposed to have helped the masses.
But the anger is much deeper. Polls show that only 13.5% of the Haitian masses have faith in any of the political parties. The New York Times worries, “At the heart of the crisis is a broad despair [with] the existing political and economic system.”
Nearly ten years ago, a massive earthquake killed over 200,000 and destroyed tens of thousands of buildings. A UN “peacekeeping” (police) mission brought with it a cholera epidemic and rampant sexual abuse.
Many around the world helped with supplies and labor. The Red Cross collected nearly $500 million, but kept over a quarter of that for itself and, in the end, built only six permanent homes.
Since then, increasingly strong and frequent hurricanes – an effect of global climate change – have battered Haiti. Many workers lack food and even clean water. Neither imperialism nor the Haitian bourgeoisie can offer even a pretense of a solution.
It’s time to organize the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) to mobilize the masses for communism and nothing less.
A communist party that doesn’t hide its politics or bury itself in reform organizations. That fights to end the material basis of racism and sexism with a revolutionary struggle for state power. That welcomes with open arms all who want to build communist society “from each according to commitment and ability, to each according to need.”
As Roumain wrote: “Get wise. Rise up. Plant a new life” – by joining ICWP!
Haiti: A History of Struggle
Before Columbus, a million Arawak/Taino people lived on an island of abundance they called Haiti (land of mountains). Everyone, including chiefs, helped to hunt and fish, to gather, plant, and harvest. The Taino were committed to feeding everyone–even the Spanish invaders.
This cooperative production and sharing was an early form of communism. It left ample time for cultural life and for collective problem solving. Even some of the Spaniards were impressed.
The Europeans quickly wiped out Taino society through disease, brutal greed and outright genocide. The French replaced the Spanish. The island was still rich, but its riches benefited France’s rising capitalist class. They continued to force enslaved Africans to produce cash crops, subjected to torture and under conditions so horrible that few survived for long.
By the French Revolution, Saint-Domingue (Haiti) accounted for a third of the Atlantic slave trade. It was called the “Pearl of the Antilles:” France’s most profitable colony, the world’s largest exporter of tropical products, and the second-largest trading partner of the United States.
Thousands freed themselves, escaping into the mountains and forming “maroon” communities. A massive and ultimately successful revolt of the enslaved workers in 1791 took the French Revolution to a whole new level. The rebels’ pledge to “live free or die” resounded across the Atlantic. Those who survived won their legal emancipation – but not freedom from exploitation.
In 1802, Napoleon sent a massive invasion force to tighten France’s grip and restore racist slavery. But an army of former slaves again rocked the world by defeating his best fighting units and winning independence. We can learn a lot from the decades of struggle that followed.
Then in 1825, France threatened another invasion. The French capitalists forced Haiti to pay 150 million gold francs (later reduced to 90 million) to “compensate” plantation owners for the loss of the property they’d extorted from enslaved labor. That would be some US$40 billion today!
This is the true source of the impoverishment of the Haitian masses. They had to pay down that debt over the course of more than a century. Meanwhile, they continued to fight back and rebel and revolt.
The US invasion of 1915 – in the interest of US banks trying to collect on still more debts – provoked the unsuccessful “Caco” uprising of 1919-20. By then, the flames of communist revolution were already burning in the hearts of masses in Haiti and around the world.
The Haitian Revolution terrified slave masters and inspired enslaved people throughout the Americas
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