Migrant Crisis: Opportunity to Mobilize for Communism here ♦ Haiti: Centuries of Struggle Against Racist Imperialism here ♦
MEXICO/GUATEMALA, BORDER August 28—-Haitians confront Mexican police and National Guard stopping the immigrant caravan.
US Southern Border Atrocities & Migrant Crisis: Opportunity to Mobilize Broadly for Communist Revolution
“You know Boeing would do the same to us, if they could!”
SEATTLE (USA)— “Yes, I saw the video of the fascists on horseback whipping Haitian migrants with their reins,” said a retired Boeing comrade, C. “But what bothers me the most is how we [the masses] got into this situation in the first place.”
His reaction raises the further question: “How do we get out of this situation?”
The short answers are: Capitalism got us into this situation. And communism will get us out.
“That’s a good way of looking at it!” said C.
Masses around the world are passionately debating these questions. Even as the news broke about the atrocities at the southern US border, nearly 60 African migrants drowned while trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands. Spain and Morocco did nothing to avert the tragedy even though they were notified of the impending calamity. Tens of thousands of migrants are homeless on the streets of Colombia and Venezuela.
Just like Trump, the Biden administration has deported thousands, now Haitians, denying them even a chance to apply for asylum. Thousands more have been pushed back into Mexico.
Wherever these migrants are forced to settle—be it the US, Mexico, or Haiti—they are not mere victims. They are potential revolutionary communist leaders.
These escalating attacks call on our party and Red Flag readers to struggle with everyone we know for the necessity of communist revolution .
A New Jersey teenager, whose family is close to the party, discussed this issue in her class when her teacher showed a video clip of the Texas Border Patrol fascists in action. This gave her grandmother an opportunity to help her delve deeper into the subject. Comrades and friends in the schools should be on the alert for opportunities like this or find ways to create them.
This is clearly a teaching moment to show the need for communist revolution.
Spread the Discussion from Classrooms to the Factories and Beyond
Education doesn’t happen only (or mainly) in classrooms. Boeing comrades and friends are making a special effort to spread this discussion among industrial workers. To better prepare our comrades and friends, C. suggested a short “cheat sheet” of Haitian history highlights. “Good job! That will help,” he said after reviewing the notes.
One Boeing worker focused on the pictures of the Haitian migrants clutching bags of food as the fascists on horseback tried to drive them back into Mexico.
“This is outrageous!” he said. “Do you know how much food is thrown away under capitalism? Just feed them! They need to eat!”
In communism, the party will organize masses to feed the masses: to each according to need. Collective production based on voluntary labor will use food, not waste it.
Another Boeing friend, who is being forced to work at a dangerous job, took the time to discuss the southern border with comrades. The images of the Border Patrol whipping Haitian refugees prompted her to declare, “You know the company would do the same to us [Boeing workers] if they could!”
Biden may succeed in temporarily banishing this issue from the front pages of the capitalist media. But he and his ruling class buddies will never extinguish the anger and fight of the global masses.
We will “get out of this situation” by building the ICWP and expanding its influence. Immigrants will take the lead. Communist masses will build a new future, free of racism, xenophobia and deadly forced migrations. There will be no nations and no borders to divide our global family. Everyone will be welcome everywhere.
Haiti: Centuries of Struggle Against Racist Imperialism
Slave revolt in Haiti
The Haitian masses have long inspired many with their fight against capitalist exploitation.
French colonialism, starting in the seventeenth century, largely destroyed the indigenous Taino people who lived collectively on the island before Columbus landed in 1492. French capitalism therefore relied on enslaved Africans to produce the raw goods that made Haiti its richest colony.
The enslaved Black workers rebelled in 1791. Their sustained struggle routed the French military and won independence in 1804.
This fight against the most profitable, most fully-developed example of European imperial sugar plantation system had global impacts.
France had to sell the huge “Louisiana Territory” to the US. This led to genocidal “westward expansion” that guaranteed the spread of slavery in North America.
US enslavers were terrified that the Haitian example would encourage slave revolts on the mainland. At their behest, the US refused to recognize Haiti for 60 years.
In 1825, French warships forced Haiti to agree to pay a huge “indemnity” to compensate French capitalism for its lost “property” – including enslaved people. French imperialism eventually extorted the equivalent of about US$21 billion.
US imperialists then bought up Haiti’s bank so that National City Bank of New York (now Citibank) could collect related interest payments.
That’s how a rich island became desperately poor. Haiti’s loan debt to the US ate up about 20% of its annual revenue, and it’s only gotten worse.
The notoriously racist US President Woodrow Wilson ordered a US invasion of Haiti in 1915. Major General Smedley Butler led it. He later wrote, “I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in…. I was a gangster for capitalism.”
The US military imposed racist segregation, press censorship, and forced labor. But in 1934, workers’ revolts, strikes and uprisings ended the direct US occupation.
US imperialism was far from done. In 1937 it orchestrated a massacre of 15,000 people on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This was to enforce a racist division between “white” Dominicans and “black” Haitians.
Later, US imperialism imposed neoliberal agricultural policies on Haiti. During the 1990s, it forced Haiti to cut tariffs on imported crops. It then shipped surplus American crops into Haiti’s ports under the guise of “Food for Peace.” Haitian subsistence farmers could not compete, and many thousands lost their land.
The idea was to create a cheap labor force for factories, but the factories never materialized.
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