Manifeste du Parti d'Entente Populaire

Alexis

The Parti d'Entente Populaire's Manifeste is a precious document for understanding how Alexis and other Haitian intellectuals viewed Marxism and the struggle of national liberation and development. While undoubtedly a Marxist and believing that the "New Independence" of Haiti must center the working classes, Alexis was a pragmatist who saw the extreme backwardness of the Haitian economy and the weakness of its working-class as major impediments to any type of socialist revolution. Instead, inter-class alliances uniting the peasantry (the vast majority of the population in the mid-20th century), the unemployed and poor urban masses, the tiny working-class, middle-class elements (despite being, on average, the most conservative, some of them and the middle-class intellectuals should be included in a united national front), and the bourgeoisie nationale should be the goal. With this broad coalition, Alexis and the PEP believed that the semi-feudal and imperialist conditions in which Haiti had languished for 150 years could finally be overturned. Already by this period, Haiti's conditions were dire and the writing was on the wall on the lack of any viable economic or social future. Consequently, the workers, peasants, progressive-minded Haitians and members of the bourgeoisie eager to industrialize Haiti or safely invest their capital in the country must cooperate to create a democratic, liberal state. 

Naturally, the PEP's program for this future state included active state intervention in the economy and a number of protections for workers, landless peasants, a plan for economic development that welcomed the national bourgeoisie and sought to limit the negative impact of US imperialism. But before any type of socialist revolution could take place, a bourgeoisie nationale must be included in a progressive coalition to overturn "feudalism" and imperialism. This reading of Haitian political history and the solution to the problems of Haiti led to a generally positive view of the Liberals of the 19th century and the champions of civil government and liberal reforms, including Edmond Paul and Firmin as intellectuals who correctly identified some of the solutions for Haiti. However, since the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois progressives in the 1840s, 1870s, and other moments ultimately sided with the "feudal" landowners, military generals, and imperialist forces at other moments when the semi-feudal, imperialist conditions of Haiti were threatened, the PEP promoted inter-class solidarity for a united front while placing less emphasis on their Marxist influences or believe in the next stage or mode. Through education, collaboration, and protecting Haitian commerce and industry, the PEP would win over progressives of the bourgeoisie whose long-term interests meant an end to the feudal conditions of Haiti. 

Of course, one wonders why conditions in the 1950s and 1960s would be any different from past experiences where Haiti's bourgeoisie chose to side with the retrograde "feudal" forces. Seeing their long-term class interests requires rational thought and a willingness to forego immediate profits while also risking everything in moments of unrest, arson or looting. Duvalierism itself also represented something new that, though obviously based on the "ancient Haitian tradition" of governance and corruption, was more extreme and authoritarian (arguably not so obvious in 1959). One assumes Alexis saw this, and perhaps was increasingly drawn to the Cuban model and Castro for their successes in seizing government and instituting a number of reforms and protections for the poor. Indeed, Mao and the Chinese Revolution were clearly another source of influence on how Alexis's political ideology and programs may have changed had he lived longer or the PEP was able to take power. And looking at Haiti today, with its apocalyptic conditions and nonviable economic, social and political conditions, one can see that no inter-class coalition that united the national bourgeoisie, workers, peasants, and the middle classes was able to institute a state with durable liberal governance. Although the political system did open up to include those from the lower classes and middle class, Haiti has been beset by various crises, foreign interventions, and now, a complete hollowing out of the state. One wonders how horrified Alexis would be today if he had lived to see what became of our island, and perhaps how far from fruition even some of the basic ideas in the PEP's program are.

Le marxisme: seul guide possible de la révolution haïtienne

Alexis

Le marxisme, seul guide possible de la révolution haïtienne by Jacques Stéphen Alexis is a fascinating essay defending Marxism and dialectical materialism as the foundation for the future revolution in Haiti. As part of the Parti d'Entente Populaire, Alexis fought for a national revolution that was democratic, anti-feudal, anti-imperialist, and included allies among the bourgeoisie nationale who saw that Haiti's semi-feudal conditions and the negative impact of imperialism hurt their interests. In response to critics of Marxism or those who questioned its utility as a framework for revolution, however, Alexis's essay articulates a view of Marxism and dialectical materialism that "completed" philosophy by overturning Hegelian idealism. In other words, Marxist theory and praxis were the best foundation for eventually reaching a future in which exploitation will cease. Others, who focused on the writings of a young Marx (before the maturation of Marxism) or sought answers in other schools of thought were missing the mark, according to Alexis. 

Naturally, Alexis's essay offers an outlook on how the PEP viewed itself and its ideology in the context of Haitian political parties. While certainly dogmatic and emphatic on the superiority of Marxism for a theory of society and framework for all sciences (included ethnology, which Alexis viewed as sterile in its Haitian context and guilty of a mystification of blackness), Alexis's views here also correlate well with his literary productions. For instance, his insistence on viewing Haitian culture as the fusion of Amerindian, African, and European traits can be found in his other writings. Furthermore, he also called for formal arts ad literature in Haiti be meet and engage with popular folklore and storytelling, something Alexis endeavored to do in his own short story collection,  Romancero aux étoiles. Alexis clearly sought to model what he believed was the best path forward for Haitian arts and literature through an active engagement with folklore, Vodou, and rural Haiti, even as he believed a Marxist application to the study of such phenomena will culminate in the liquidation of aspects of Vodou and superstition. But by embracing those contradictions or apparent contradictions in the making of Haitian identity and culture, something new will emerge out of Marxist engagement and study. Thus, the alienation experienced by colonized and racialized peoples like Haitians, or the contradictions and ambivalence of Haitian Creole and French, the color question, Roman Catholicism and Vodou, and Haiti's complex cultural heritage will, eventually, be unveiled through Marxist analysis and revolution.

While Alexis is a far more mature thinker here than in his youthful writings in La Ruche, one cannot help but feel that much of this is outmoded. The idea that Marxist revolution and technological improvements would eventually displace or end veneration of, say, aquatic spirits in Haitian Vodou, seems incredibly unlikely due to the survival of religion in the Soviet bloc. Likewise, one cannot help but wonder how the PEP would succeed in ushering a truly democratic revolution with the aid of the bourgeoisie nationale under the guidance of the proletariat. If segments of the Haitian bourgeoisie were unable to align with the piquets in the 19th century, how would Marxist-influenced revolutionaries make it happen when the power of the bourgeoisie nationale would have to rely on heavy exploitation of the workers to a significant degree before becoming competitive with the comprador bourgeoisie or international capital? In other words, wouldn't the Haitian bourgeoisie, already being weaker and under threat from the international capitalist system, and undermined by the comprador class and nearly 2 centuries of Haitian political economy in the interests of foreign or semi-foreign capital, have to rely on certain conditions of exploitation of the working class to reach a point where their capital could be invested in industrialization? One supposes Alexis knew this, and thus insisted that the working-class would have to exert significant control of this first step in the Haitian Revolution, to protect workers' rights and labor laws. We assume this is partly why Alexis praised Mao and the Chinese Revolution as a revolution of oppressed nations which sought to align all pro-nationalist forces and even inculcate upper classes or bourgeois allies with the belief that they should work alongside the peasantry and working classes.

Lamaute and the Bourgeoisie Nationale

One of the important theorists and activists in the annals of the Haitian Left, Alix Lamaute was one of the victims of the massacre of both PUCH members and innocent bystanders ordered by dictator François Duvalier.  Besides Lamaute, several prominent Haitian Communists were also killed, including Brisson, The  attack on the village of Cazale was particularly brutal, as young Communists and locals were mercilessly slaughtered by Duvalierist forces eager to end Communist armed uprisings. By 1969, Duvalier was already president for life with apparent total rule. Nonetheless, by the late 1960s, the two main Haitian Marxist parties unified into the Parti unifié des communistes haïtiens, which would embrace revolutionary violence to overthrow Duvalier. Rebels arriving from Cuban bases or across the Dominican border made clear the degree to which left-wing rebels poised a threat to the regime, even if their influence in numbers was rather small. 

Nevertheless, some of the ideas expressed by intellectuals within the PUCH are worth remembering for what it reveals of the nature of Haitian Marxism and political thought. Lamaute, whose La bourgeoisie nationale: une entité controversée encapsulates some of the main streams of Marxist thought in Haiti during the 1960s, deserves attention today for the still disturbing question of the Haitian prospects of a national bourgeoisie that could work with proletariat forces and a Marxist vanguard to transform Haiti. Lamaute, whose thought owes much to Alexis, Ambroise, Rameau, Pierre-Charles and other Haitian historians, economists, and intellectuals on the Left, presents an overview on primitive accumulation in Haiti, the idea of the 19th century Liberal party as progressive and the Nationals as feudal, and the weakness of the Haitian bourgeoisie. 

Lukacs and Christian Beaulieu also make an appearance on the caste question, as the so-called feudal or semi-feudal nature of the Haitian economy prevents the emergence of a full class-based society in which the embryonic national bourgoisie can truly emerge. Caste-like features actually, according to Lamaute, hinder the development of class consciousness among the bourgeoisie. Thus, the caste-like nature of Haitian social structure of that era is linked to the semi-feudal economy of rural Haiti and the dependence of the Haitian bourgeoisie on US and foreign capital and machinery. Borrowing from Gramsci, Lamaute also describes the the mimetism of the Haitian dominant classes and the forms of alienation one might suspect earlier generations of Haitian intellectuals to refer to as cultural bovarysme. But like Beaulieu, Lamaute probably saw the supposed caste system as being weakened by increasing industrialization and urbanization in Haiti over the course of the 20th century, particularly after 1915.

The remainder of the text focuses on the prospects of a joint anti-imperialist front connecting the proletariat and local bourgeoisie. Arguing against Fanon, who saw the bourgeoisie as a still-born class in the struggles of Third World liberation, Lamaute instead sees the development of a local bourgeoisie, primarily oriented towards the internal market and directing industries using local industry and labor and products as aligning itself with the proletariat and popular masses in the name of nationalism. For Lamaute, the national bourgeoisie only needs to see how nationalism could strengthen their class position. For, a truly national bourgeoisie (instead of the existing comprador Haitian one) would and could fight for a number of economic and social reforms that would benefit the proletariat and masses (free press, state policies, etc.) as well as accentuate the coming class conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This, to the Marxist teleological paradigm of Lamaute, would eventually usher in a socialist state with the proletariat and a vanguard of professional revolutionaries constantly pressuring the bourgeoisie to avoid too much collusion with imperialist powers.

In order to truly make sense of Lamaute's argument, however, one must see it as part of a trajectory of Haitian Marxist thought dating back to the 1940s and the Parti Socialiste Populaire. Like his 1940s forebears, Lamaute saw the peasantry, who comprised the majority of the Haitian population, as incapable of leading the path to socialism. Instead, Haiti must oppose imperialism and develop its bourgeoisie and proletariat, thereby strengthening class conflict and a shift in the mode of production to capitalism. Then, and only then, would a working-class revolution ultimately succeed. To Lamaute, who cited the example of the peasantry of Bolivia as a cautionary tale, the Haitian peasant will not come to a strict class consciousness and must be led by the proletariat in any alliance. Otherwise, the peasant will be used against the proletariat by the petit or moyenne bourgeoisie, as in Bolivia. In other words, the proletariat will make the revolution or there will be no revolution. But in order to reach that point, a truly national bourgeoisie must emerge that is not a comprador one, and which would heighten the class conflicts while further eroding the semi-feudal characteristics of the Haitian economy. 

One wonders if Lamaute, like Alexis, Roumain and other Haitian Marxists, may have adopted a somewhat anti-paysan perspective by viewing the religion of Vodou as encouraging fatalism. The complex question of the Haitian peasant in Haitian socialism, however, is beyond the immediate concerns of Lamaute's La bourgeoisie nationale. And after another half century, it is clear that the kind of national bourgeoisie called for by Lamaute did not emerge. If anything, an anti-national bourgeoisie strengthened itself under the rule of Baby Doc, and the question of the peasantry and democratic reforms would have to change. Nevertheless, Lamaute's treatise provides a window onto the thoughts and theoretical formulations that guided the young militants of the PEP, PPLN, and later PUCH in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. 

Mariners, Renegades and Castaways

I finally finished Moby-Dick, just to be able to read Mariners, Renegades and Castaways, a well-known essay by C.L.R. James on Herman Melville and the world in which we live. I find that we sometimes limit James to just a Caribbean or colonial context, ignoring his provocative works on American life, civilization, and literature. His work on American Civilization, as well as his study of Melville, are intimately linked to 14 years of life in the US and his experience with the barbarous, unjust treatment of immigrants and political dissidents by the US government. As a man from Trinidad who had lived in Europe and engaged with the international Left even before stepping foot on US soil, he was nonetheless very much shaped by his experience in this country. After all, much of his theoretical essays and provocative work on the question of state capitalism, the role of the masses, and anti-vanguardism seem to be a product of his time in the US. 

Although much has been written about the flawed aspects of James's analysis of Ahab and Melville, there is a recurring fear of the totalitarian personality as revealed in Ahab. Reading Melville makes it quite clear, too, how the US by the mid-19th century was a distinct civilization and Melville saw something of the coming crisis of the modern world. Ishmael, the powerless intellectual, Ahab, driven by totalitarian impulse, the diverse and motley crew of a modern, global industry of whaling (and the "savage" harpooners), and the inevitable downfall wrought by obsession and the irrational pursuit of Moby Dick do suggest some merit in James's analysis of the novel. Nonetheless, his study of Melville should be read in light of a Jamesian perspective on US civilization. 

It is in the failure of the diverse, international crew of the Pequod to come together in spontaneous creativity to end their alienation and seize the means of production that unavoidably leads to the demise of the ship. The officers, such as Starbuck, are too attached to their Quaker roots and the ideology of capital to resist, while Ishmael, though ensconced in a milieu of laborers, and friend of Queequeg, remains detached. Philosophy has not yet become sufficiently proletarian. And though a spirit of camaraderie exists among the crew, including the prominence of "savages" to challenge the dominant racial ideology of the day, they lack, in spite of technical proficiency, the wherewithal to overthrow Ahab (succumbing in awe to his attempts to exhibit control of nature or the allure of the doubloon). Nonetheless, there is something quite alluring in Jamesian thought on the US, and the role of mass culture and creative impulses in revolutionary change. It's a welcome change from something like Adorno, who took a rather dismal view to US mass culture, and perhaps remained so blinded by that European conception of high culture that he was unable to see the new "socialism" fermenting. 

American Civilization

American Civilization is one of those pivotal texts of CLR James often ignored or omitted from discussion. However, upon reading it, one gains new insights with regards to how James conceived the relationship between popular movements and their leaders. It also serves as a testament to the intellectual development of the Johnson-Forest Tendency of ca. 1950. Indeed, inklings of a rejection of vanguardism and the autonomous socialist vision of James manifest in American Civilization, which also triumphs for its forward-looking conception of American popular culture, individualism, and the the threat of totalitarianism. 

Indeed, American Civilization is refreshingly bereft of most of Adorno's disdain for US popular culture, while sharing a similar concern with the danger of alienation and totalitarian Plans. Like his other works of the period, James commits himself to a rejection of Stalinism, overly centralized bureaucracies, Catholic Humanism, and the disconnect between intellectuals and workers. Instead, the separation of labor of the body and mind is increasingly unnecessary as laborers have mastered new technology and benefit from mass produced literature, arts, and production. To paraphrase another line of James, philosophy must be proletarian. 

One supposes the remaining question is, what does one make of the actual trajectory of US civilization after 1950? The miners, UAW workers, and others, supposedly responding to a collectivized individual need for control of production, may be found among wildcat strikes today. However, what happened to the new socialism? The New Left and its failure during the resurgence of the Right and neoliberalism? I cannot help but think American Civilization successfully identified the problem of alienation and its impact on US popular culture and responses to it, but perhaps James incorrectly assumed the labor movement would, through spontaneous action and the need to control production, ultimately overthrow the capitalist order. To his credit, James avoids foretelling the future, but the struggle against alienated, mechanized existence seems as pressing as ever. 

Qui était Christian Beaulieu?

Beaulieu from Antonin's Jacques Roumain, la passion d'un pays

Who was Christian Beaulieu? Although an important figure in the history of radicalism in Haiti, as well as education and Creole literacy, finding information about Beaulieu is far more difficult than it should be. A friend collaborator of Jacques Roumain, co-founder of the first Haitian Communist Party, and contributor to journals and newspapers such as Les Griots and Le Nouvelliste, as well as a pedagogical review, his paper trail appears far less copious than that of the more famous figures in the annals of the Haitian Left. Understanding who and what Beaulieu represented in the history of education in Haiti, in addition to the development of the Left, provides key insights into the role of language, discourse, and social structure which framed debates among various sects of the Haitian left and labor movement for the next several decades. 

As to the specific details of his life, Leslie Péan appears to be the main source relied on by others. From an article he authored in Le Petit Samedi Soir, Michel Hector and Matthew J. Smith draw their data. Beaulieu was, according to Hector, a "travailleur immigré" in the Dominican Republic before ending up at Columbia University, studying teaching. Unfortunately, without access to the source material used by Hector, one cannot but remain somewhat confused or mesmerized by the fact of a Haitian migrant worker in the Dominican Republic, presumably in the 1920s, eventually ending up in an elite US university. If Beaulieu was a migrant worker in the DR, presumably his roots were in the Haitian working-class or peasantry, yet his education suggests otherwise. Furthermore, without access to Beaulieu's writings on education, it is difficult to even begin to guess what his education at Columbia's Teacher College entailed, although presumably it shaped his desire to reform Haitian education with Creole instruction, thereby increasing the literacy rate and, in his view, pave the way for Haitians to learn to read French through an etymological orthography. 

By 1932, we learn that Bealieu traveled to New York with Jacques Roumain, seeking aid from the Communist Party to form the first Haitian party. The two must have crossed paths based on opposition to the US Occupation among Haitian youth and organized circles. By the early 1930s, Beaulieu, Roumain, and Louis Diaquoi (who, it must be said, flirted with Marxism) were discussing Marxism, radicalism, etc, and on the cusp of forming the Haitian Communist Party. After experiencing repression from Vincent and expulsion from the city of Port-au-Prince, Beaulieu appears again in the late 1930s, part of a United Front of opposition parties to stop Vincent from seeking another term in 1940. 

By the time of his death in 1943, due to a wartime shortage of penicillin (according to Max D. Sam), Beaulieu's work had appeared in La Nation, Le Nouvelliste and Les Griots, presumably still a Marxist but clearly someone of some degree of status or standing among intellectual circles. Unlike Roumain, who spent his final years with the Bureau d'Ethnologie and serving the Lescot government, Beaulieu appears to not have gone down the path of ethnology or the cultural politics of indigénisme, but was clearly familiar with the aforementioned Diaquoi and others affiliated with Griots. Beaulieu, like Roumain, demonstrate the degree of overlapping affiliations and intellectual journals that combined aspects of radical left-wing politics with noirist intellectuals and nationalists during and after the Occupation.

In terms of developing an orthography for Haitian Creole to promote education, Beaulieu was one of the first. According to Péan, Beaulieu and Faublas jeune were inspired by their socialist politics to develop a standardized orthography for the language. This is a fascinating idea, on the importance of literacy, education in the vernacular, and radical politics, which may explain why the Parti Socialiste Populaire's paper included a Creole section. It speaks to the socialist view of Haiti under US Occupation and after, a period of urbanization, proletarianization, and the need to bring to the masses new ideas and inclusion. Surely, Roumain and Beaulieu confronted the problem of literacy whilst attempting to form cells of their party in working-class quarters of Port-au-Prince, which necessitated an attempt to democratize language in Haiti. 

However, Beaulieu's "Pour Ecrire le Créole" advocates an etymological spelling for the language, which, though more difficult to learn, would facilitate later mastering of French. Phonetic spelling, which ultimately won out in the long run for a standardized Creole, would make it harder for monolingual speakers to learn to read French, which Beaulieu clearly saw as relevant part of Haiti. Access to French literacy would form a breach that opened a wider world to Haitians, which may suggest to some that Beaulieu was a Francophile. Although, in consideration of the fact that the vast majority of words in the tongue are of French origin, perhaps Beaulieu's middle position of mostly using etymological orthography with some concessions to phonetic spelling was an equitable system that would resist the phonetic spellings developed by Protestant missionaries and US linguists. Moreover, as explained by some Creole speakers themselves, the phonetic spelling privileges the Creole of Port-au-Prince and the dominant regions of Haiti, thus still an imperfect system for writing the vernacular language of the nation. 

Beaulieu's "Caste et Classe" in Le Nouvelliste

Ultimately, a phonetic spelling did succeed, but Beaulieu's socialist politics and attempt to call for education in the vernacular sheds light on the role of language among the Haitian Left. Jacques Roumain, for example, wrote Gouverneurs de la Rosée with a fluid language reflecting Creole and French, directly addressing the complex interplay of Haitian society through both languages. Totongi, who has criticized Francophilia in Haiti, has went as far as to suggest that the next literary move for Roumain would have been to embrace the vernacular in toto, which may be a stretch. Nonetheless, it exemplifies the extent to which the Left in Haiti was shaped by the popular vernacular, a need to find a uniquely Haitian voice, and create a proletarian literature. It is difficult to imagine any of this without the impact of Beaulieu on Roumain and other contemporaries. How could a Left make its literary and political aspirations relevant to the working-classes and peasantry without embracing Creole?

Beaulieu's other significant role in the history of the Haitian Left is surely his views on the Leyburn thesis and social relations in the "Black Republic," which can be traced back as far as the founding of the first Communist party. Although Analyse schématique, the first Marxist analysis of the country (excepting references to Marxism by Louis-Joseph Janvier), is usually credited to Roumain, the Haitian Communist Party's publication was a group effort to some extent. Articulating the party's views on the class struggle, the heterogeneous nature of the Haitian proletariat, the suffocating role of imperialism, and the confused manifesto of Réaction Démocratique, it likely represents the confluence of Roumain, Beaulieu, and Étienne Charlier's views. 

Beaulieu, who was a migrant worker in the Dominican Republic, surely knew first hand the proletarianization of the Haitian peasantry, providing much-needed lived experience and contact with the worsening conditions for the proletariat and petite bourgeoisie. Thus, Beaulieu's lived experience was directly tied to the party's formulations of class, color, and imperialism. In short, they argued that color is a mask used by bourgeois politicians to mask class struggle, but the process of proletarianization supposedly connected the class struggle with anti-imperialism. The Party's views on the color question are, therefore, what one would expect from a Communist party of the era, albeit cognizant of the ways in which color did indeed have psychological significance for social relations. Color was, in other words, nothing, but class was everything.

By 1942, Beaulieu further developed a unique perspective on Haitian society in a response to the Leyburn thesis, entitled Caste et Classe. Leyburn, author of what is one of the classic studies of the nation written by an American social scientist, argued Haiti was a caste society in which color was particularly salient. The elite caste were (mostly) mulatto, urban, Catholic, and French-speaking. The masses were rural, spoke Creole, practiced Vodou, etc. Unlike Price-Mars, who also responded to Leyburn's thesis to deny a caste interpretation of Haiti, Beaulieu forged a middle path that, with nuance, captured the degree to which caste and class are interrelated forms of social stratification. Furthermore, certainly the US had features of a caste and class society, particularly with regards to the question of race (the differing interpretations of Oliver C. Cox would be interesting to study in light of Haiti), so Beaulieu's argument for a caste society in transition to class provokes larger questions on the nature of stratification across the Americas. 

Roumain's tribute to Beaulieu, from Oeuvres Complètes

If the color question in Haiti did indeed resemble, to a certain extent, a closed caste-like system, it was in a state of transition as a result of democratization, the development of capitalism (accelerated by the US Occupation), and Haitian social mobility. An incipient class society was in formation, with social mobility disproving any kind of strict caste interpretation based on skin color. According to Beaulieu, this tension between caste and class were the motors of Haitian history, partly shaped by ruling elites at the time who may emphasize one or the other. Thus, the dialectic of class and caste were the engine of change in Haitian society, varying based on the political, economic, and social aims of the dominant party at the time. 

For example, Beaulieu saw the fall of the Liberals in the late 19th century until 1915 as a period emphasizing class, suggesting that the Liberals were, to at least a certain extent, tied to a caste rule, presumably a reference to the stereotype of the political party as one of upper-class mulattoes. US Occupation, from 1915 through 1934, brought back, in spite of the new economic and social forces, a return of caste's predominance through the installation of mostly mulatto presidents, such as Dartiguenave and Borno. Of course, there are a number of problematic assumptions or issues with Beaulieu's approach to the social history of Haiti based on class and caste, but it offers some advantages for thinking about the notorious "color question" in a different manner.

Beaulieu's interpretation also brings to mind the argument of Haitian leftists of later decades, obsessed with proving the Haitian economy to be feudal or semi-feudal. However, a caste society would be one that overlaps with a feudal or semi-feudal economic order, with the class society's full development limited by weak democratization and feudal-like economic conditions. The Parti Socialiste Populaire and subsequent Left organizations would take up similar arguments, which, while possibly clarifying, may introduce other problems inherent in any deterministic Marxism. Beaulieu, however, appears more nuanced in his response to Leyburn than the co-written Analyse schématique of the 1930s.

Beaulieu's view of a caste system en route to class suggests a more contextualized view that captures the perseverance of the old into new forms of social relations, with this tension being more believable than Herskovits's socialized ambivalence or Price-Mars bovarysme. The culturalist framework, which while certainly convincing to a certain degree, could be oriented towards any political agenda, thereby continuing an unequal class system while supposedly uniting all social classes in Haiti through nationalism. Furthermore, he removes any potential trouble of fixating on economic systems, since the caste-like aspects of the US social hierararchy persist in the center of international capitalism. This does suggest, to a certain extent, the independence of the race (color) question within class societies, which cannot be reduced entirely to class. Nevertheless, the color (race) question is still in some shape determined by the class question, since the Beaulieu of the 1940s likely still believed the PCH's argument that color prejudice in Haiti won't cease until the disappearance of the exploitation of the masses by the (mostly mulatto) oppressive bourgeoisie. 

Christian Beaulieu's College of Petion-Ville also involved Etienne Charlier and Max D. Sam, familiar names with the Haitian Left. 

In retrospect, Beaulieu's lived experience, practical Marxism, and educational reforms suggest his importance for the development of the Left may be underappreciated. Additional research must be done to understand precisely the scope of his Creole literacy project, but his influence on Roumain and the subsequent generations cannot be refuted. His views on education and the nature of Haitian social stratification were shaped by his Marxism, but not limited by it. By 1941, he saw to some extent the issue of the "color question" (or, race) as independent of class, but the combination of the two (with their internal contradictions) as the motor in the nation's history. One cannot but think of the famous stipulation on the nature of racial and class oppression in The Black Jacobins when considering Beaulieu's nuanced perspective. Undoubtedly, Beaulieu's lived experience in New York and the Dominican Republic suggest the larger regional implications of his ideas. There is something particularly ironic about US or European observers describing Haiti as a caste society in consideration of extreme racial inequality in the US at the time.

Edit (7-17-2019)

Leslie Péan's 1979 article on Christian Beaulieu fills in several gaps in the easily attainable knowledge on his life and work. From Péan, the Jacmel origins of Beaulieu are clarified, as well as his experience as a migrant worker in the Dominican Republic. Going there to work on railway construction, presumably Beaulieu continued to work for railroads or was employed by sugar plantations. Then, ending up at Columbia University to study teaching, Beaulieu returned to Haiti. According to Péan, he played a role in the 1929 strike at Damien and was involved in various schools and educational reform movements in the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, Beaulieu was a pivotal figure in the early promotion of Haitian Creole for education of the masses, and was involved in launching different schools in Port-au-Prince and teaching in Jacmel.

Unfortunately, Péan does not go into the specifics of Beaulieu's published writing on Haitian Creole education or reforms in L'école réelle. However, one can infer it was likely informed by his left-wing politics, training at Columbia University, and his experiences with teaching  in Port-au-Prince. Beaulieu's importance in terms of the legacy of the PSP and its newspaper, La Nation, cannot be denied, either. Thus, Beaulieu's significance in terms of the Haitian Left's interest in the uplift or education of the masses shaped the PSP militants and their successors for the next several decades.

 Bibliography

Beaulieu, Christian. "Caste et Classe." Le Nouvelliste (Port-au-Prince), July 28-29, 1942.

Hector, Michel. 1989. Syndicalisme et socialisme en Haïti: 1932-1970. Port-au-Prince, Haïti: Impr. H. Deschamps.

 Leslie Péan, « Du côté de la liberté – Christian Beaulieu », Le Petit Samedi Soir, no. 320, 12-18 janvier 1980.

Roumain, Jacques. Analyse schématique (1932-1934) et autres textes scientifiques. 2016. <http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/roumain_jacques/analyse_schematique/analyse_schematique.html>.

Smith, Matthew J. Red & Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934-1957. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

RIP Bloncourt

Image Courtesy: Île en Île.

Gérald Bloncourt, one of the youth leaders who played a pivotal role in the 1946 revolution in Haiti, passed away last month. Bloncourt altered the course of Haitian political history, alongside Rene Depestre, Jacques Alexis, and many other left-wing students and youth eager for a change in Haiti after World War II. Through a youth journal, La Ruche, and their activism, demonstrations and protests eventually led to autocratic Lescot's fall from the presidency. However, much has been written about January 1946 and the role of Bloncourt at that convergence of radicalism, democratic fervor, the birth of an official Haitian labor movement and political upheaval. Bloncourt deserves additional attention for contributing to the Haitian arts movement as well as photographing the lives and struggles of immigrant communities in France during his long exile from Haiti. 

As someone interested in radicalism, labor, and social movements in Haiti, Bloncourt and his collaborators at La Ruche are a treasure trove of information, context, and details on how Haitian youths coming of age during and after the US Occupation came to Marxism and social movements. Issues of La Ruche are available online at the University of Florida Digital Collections, and the short-lived journal contained a variety of viewpoints on the questions of labor, class, and socialism in a Haitian context. Chenet, Alexis, Menard, Depestre, plus Bloncourt and many others contributed essays on surrealism, the question of inter-class alliances, US imperialism, the color question (showing the influence of Roumain and Christian Beaulieu, particularly the latter's essay in Le Nouvelliste on the Leyburn thesis), Marxism's applicability in an underdeveloped country like Haiti, and the relationship between religion and fascism. 

Bloncourt was clearly a product of this milieu of early radical thought in Haiti, both echoing and predating other Marxist currents in 20th century Haitian politics like Roumain's 1930s party or the subsequent parties, the renewed PCH and the Parti Socialiste Populaire, or PSP. In fact, Bloncourt was surprisingly tied to the second PCH associated with Felix Dorleans Juste, and not the PSP, which suggests the extent to which youth radicals in Haiti at the time were politically divided and differed in their interpretation of Marxism, political activity, and labor movements. Now, with only Depestre and Chenet, the remaining survivors of the Cinq Glorieuses, it behooves us to study in detail the revolutionary moments in Haiti when socialist and democratic change was possible. Bloncourt's generation helped ensure the the middle-class and segments of the working-class had a voice in Haiti. It's up to us to complete the vision. 

Searching for An Embryonic Proletariat

Source 

A little project I've been obsessed with over the last few days is the question of the 'pre-proletariat' in Haiti, before the US Occupation. Although I am still waiting for access to a few sources (Pean, Gaillard, Corvington), I believe I can lay out a sketch of what I am trying to do here. Haitian Marxist historian Michel Hector has written about this "embryonic proletariat" and is my main source, but, unfortunately, he doesn't cite sources for some of his dates of early strikes in Haiti (in the 1890s and 1900s, among barbers, cordonniers, etc.). I am also struggling to find information about the Coeurs Unis des Artisans (founded in Cap-Haitien, in 1870, this organization of artisans and government functionaries persisted into the 1890s) and the Association Ouvrière (founded in July 1894, in Port-au-Prince), the only labor organizations I have come across for the 19th century. Regardless, here is a schematic overview of what I have been attempting to uncover.

Beginning in 1848 (or 1860, if one cites another essay by Hector published in a Mexican academic journal), assuming one agrees with Michel Hector's chronology, one sees the encroachment of foreign capital in Haiti (particularly in agriculture) and early attempts at improving industry, importing new technology, and a growing population of wage laborers. The period of 1804-1843, although including some plantations for sugar production (especially 1804-1820) and centers of local industry (such as hat production, in 1840s Port-au-Prince), Haiti did not attract significant foreign capital for new industries or agriculture.. Under Geffrard and successive presidents, attempts were made to improve productivity and attract foreign capital through concessions, educational reforms, public works projects, and imported technology (steam engines, cotton gins, coffee processing plants, soap factories, etc.) and new agricultural exports (cotton, for instance, was profitable in the Geffrard years). Unfortunately, state economic policies inhibited the growth of industry because of the growing dependence on foreign firms for imports, dependence on coffee exports, and trade policies which made it more difficult for Haitian industries to compete with Europe or the United States for various goods and products. In fact, Michel Hector cites a petition of Haitian artisans and workers to the government of Port-au-Prince, demanding a change in prices of consumer products and state support for Haitian-produced products, to which Edmond Paul, also responded. Paul, a proponent of industrialization and Haitian economic independence, certainly saw the need to support Haitian self-sufficiency and development in order to protect national independence. Under Salomon and successive governments, various expositions in Port-au-Prince and abroad (such as Chicago's 1893 fair) promoted Haitian industry, agriculture, and attempts at economic modernization. Both the Liberal and National parties were devoted to progress, agricultural improvements, and industry, at least rhetorically.

By the 1870s, Cubans, who were migrating through the circum-Caribbean region as a result of the Cuban Wars of independence, came to Port-au-Prince and other cities. Many were tailors, shoemakers, barbers, and small businessmen, who revitalized Haitian trade professions in urban areas, employed local workers, and were an important segment of the foreign population in Haiti in the late decades of the 19th century. Like the Cubans, Jamaicans and other migrants and artisans from the Caribbean and Europe also came to Haiti. Much of the skilled labor and specialized labor was performed by these foreign workers in Haiti, which may have inhibited or influenced early Haitian labor organization (assuming that many of these foreigners only passed through Haiti for a few years, and were mostly in urban areas). Thus, the Haitian 'working-class' of the second half of the 19th century was mostly based in skilled trades, and associated more with pre-industrial productivity and organization. In the rural areas, a growing number of people were working for commercial houses that exported coffee and other products, while others were employed in plantations, distilleries, refineries, and the coffee processing centers (which appear to have improved productivity and the quality of Haitian coffee beans for export, thereby spreading to other regions of the country). From going through various sources for the late 19th century and early 20th century, many of these ventures employed 50-100 laborers, and in some cases, more (including some urban workshops and factories as well as larger commercial firms preparing and processing export products). For example, Riviere's steamship company suppposedly employed 120 workers, according to an 1876 article in Les Bigailles. However, Hector's articles and essays which touch on this reveal that wages were low, and primary sources contradict each other on the availability of labor while many of these ventures did not survive for more than a few years. 

Regrettably, one must delve deeper into the newspapers, financial records, the National Bank of Haiti, and state records of the period to uncover specific informaton about the rural wage laborers of this time. For instance, how many were seasonal? Were the women trieuses of the Haitian coffee industry, such as those of Maison Vital, paid less than males who worked for these commercial houses and plantations? How many were paid in wages and in the demwatye system? How did the agrarian "pre-proletariat" relate to the "feudal" and peasant economies of the rural area? Did the landless poor and sharecropper of rural Haiti of the time begin to migrate to the cities, and if so, were any eventually employed in the new industries (such as cola factories, ice factories) or the cordonneries, cabinetmakers, tanneries, and other forms of employment? What about the educational reforms, such as the 1892 Ecole Libre Professionelle? Were skilled workers trained there, and if so, how many? What were labor relations like at Les Plantations d'Haiti, established in 1901, in Bayeux? According to various sources, this venture, founded with Belgian capital, employed perhaps 300 or more workers to grow sugar, rubber, bananas, and other products for export. Were labor relations "cordial" as some sources indicate? What about references to socialism and anarchism, which appear in 1890s and 1900s Haitian journals and texts? Or references to Anglo-Saxon/Latin dichotomies of labor and labor organization in Le Matin? Did provincial industries based on pre-industrial methods, such as the production of hats and pipes in Bainet, disappear with the rise of US capital in the 20th century? How many commercial firms were directly involved in growing coffee, cotton and other crops versus buying from speculateurs? Were the workers in the new hotels, cigarette and cigar factories, bakeries, foundries, and other ventures from the countryside or the peri-urban peripheral neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince? How did Haitian bourgeois capitalists compete with foreign firms and commercial houses also engaged in coffee, cotton, and similar ventures?

And what about labor strikes, organizations, mutual aid societies, guilds, radicalism and resistance? Hector cites Joseph Justin and Joseph Jeremie to demonstrate the non-existence of strikes, workers associations and unions in 19th century Haiti, but mentions strikes in the 1890s (barbers in Port-au-Prince, for example, in 1891) and early 1900s. The 1890s witnessed the formation of an Association Ouvriere, of a mutualist character (despite fears of socialism and anarchism among some in the Haitian political class). One of its leaders, Stanislas Madour, was involved with some of the Haitian artisanal products displayed at the 1893 Chicago Exposition, presumably since he was a cabinet-maker. Through Hector, one can locate a source for a 1905 strike of shoemakers, which was organized by a union (Syndicat des Ouvriers Cordonniers) founded in 1903 with 47 workers. This union, though small and ephemeral, even sent aid to Jamaican laborers after a natural catastrophe there, indicating an internationalist conception of labor solidarity. Of course, the non-peasant working population in Haiti remained small (one estimate I found indicated only 25,000 agricultural workers by 1915), but I am curious as to the social formation of the period as Haiti made the transition to global capitalism dominated by the United States. For example, were any of these aforementioned workers and artisans exposed to or influenced by Cuban worker and artisan radicalism or educational efforts, as indicated in the works of authors like Casanova, James, or Poyo? What else besides support political revolutions in Port-au-Prince did the urban/semi-urban popular classes accomplish? How did popular beliefs, Vodou, and different conceptions of labor and value shape worker-boss relations and resistance? What about the impact of class stratification in the Haitian countryside during this period (1860-1915)? How did the expansion of Port-au-Prince affect the semi-urban workers and unemployed in Bizoton and other districts? What about cooperatives, communal work projects, and gender relations? How did urban workers and artisans engaged in associations and the early unions of the 1900s differ from their rural counterparts?

As for sources, this work in progress has not pressured me to forming a proper bibliography. The works of Michel Hector have been the main source, as well as various 19th century and early 20th century commercial registries, consular reports, Haitian state documents, some newspapers, and contemporary Haitian texts and essays on education, labor, political econony, and industry. The Blue Book of Hayti, published during the US Occupation, is a priceless source for information on various firms that operated in Haiti in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In addition, it includes photographs of various offices, warehouses, and factories, as well as estimates on the number of employees and the commodities produced, processed, and exported. Pierre-Charles, Joachim, Dupuy, Trouillot, Jean Luc, Richman, Dubois, Plummer, Gaillard, and others have been useful secondary sources, although future references from Latortue, Corvington, Brisson, Redsons, Pean and additional newspapers shall be beneficial. Richman's oral history and archival research on Lacombe's land theft and HASCO in the Leogane plain is fascinating, but one wonders how representative it is of the ways in which Haitian landowners and foreign firms seized land from Haitian peasants in the second half of the 19th century and used the sharecropping system for production of coffee and sugar. One wonders to what extent the Simmond Brothers and other firms would have done what Lacombe did, who, since he lacked the capital and access to credit, persisted in using the sharecropping system to grow coffee and sugar. Perhaps, even before HASCO, wage laborers for agro-industrial companies were already experiencing dislocation and preferred to work outside of their communities, while their more fortunate counterparts persisted in the 'traditional' peasant economy. If the peasant moral economy was under threat already by Lacombe, and further weakened by the enroachment of HASCO, it would be interesting to see if this development was similar to that of other regions of Haiti, and in what manner agricultural workers may have responded similarly to other large-scale plantation developments and displacement. 

Facing Reality

Facing Reality is the one essay by C.L.R. James that I have been meaning to read for the last year. Well, I finally completed it within the last week or so. Here are some of my rambling thoughts on this most anarchist of James's theoretical works. First, I must admit that I have long been sympathetic to forms of anarchism and direct democracy. James, Boggs, and Castoriadis develop a critique of the dominant Communist and Trotskyist parties as well as the Western liberal welfare state model. 

Indeed, to them, "Fascism, Corporate State, One-Party State, Welfare State, Totalitarianism, all of these are ways in which rationalism attempts to adapt itself to the modern community." Building on their insights from State Capitalism and World Revolution, James argues for the self-movement of the workers as the path toward socialism. Like The Invading Socialist Society, autonomous and self-directed action initiated by the working-class against union bureaucracy, the state, and employers is the beginning of socialism. 

Since the work was published after the Hungarian Revolution and in the midst of the Cold War, the analysis is centered on workers in the advanced economies of the US, Britain, France, and the USSR. Clearly, the influence of self-directed workers in Detroit's  auto industry influenced James, Boggs, and Castoriadis, pushing them away from vanguardist socialist parties of the Leninist mould. Indeed, like James's view of popular democracy in ancient Athens, the working masses, when trusted to act of their own volition, shake the world and challenge technocratic elites, the political forms of rationalism, and offer the only solution to the dilemma of state capitalism and nuclear annihilation. 

However, if James et al. were correct, why did things turn out so differently in the advanced industrial nations? The shifting spatial and social relations within the factory and global economy suggest that the authors were guilty of a romanticized and unrealistic perspective on the attainability of workers councils. I remain sympathetic and find their views of events in Hungary or wildcat strikes in the US fruitful for study, but when large industrial workplaces are less common in the US, how can the self-directed workers establish workers councils and seize the means of production? How can the libertarian socialism espoused here, opposed to vanguards, remain relevant to 2018? Even if it proved to be somewhat prophetic about social change in the 1960s and in terms of Solidarity in Poland?

Despite its limitations, Facing Reality is one of the more intriguing theoretical works of James. It shows, as scholars like Matthew Quest have argued, how James's Marxism was influenced by anarchism (libertarian socialism?) and a rejection of central aspects of Leninism. Furthermore, it persuasively suggests the capacities for the masses are far more developed than we realize. Instead of a fear of the crowd, James and company argue that the masses know their interests and can act in it, for a more egalitarian society. The professional bureaucrats and technocratic elites block this aspiration among the working-class, hence the critiques of rationalism and a call for philosophy to become proletarian. Indeed, this central insight to the role of the division of labor and knowledge in a society is one I find powerful. If we want a more egalitarian society, then every cook must be able to and allowed to govern. Perhaps unrealistic, but it remains a powerful idea.

Modern Politics

Modern Politics, a series of lectures given by C.L.R. James in 1960 (in Trinidad, land of his birth), is a fascinating overview of Western political thought and C.L.R. James explaining his view of the world. While his Marxism is a definite part of the lectures, it's profoundly interesting for how James views the legacy of direct democracy from the Greek city-state (as well as Aristotle and Socrates) and the influence of Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Marx in paving the way for a a solution to the problem of modernity (as he saw it in the 1960s). His belief in the dialectic and the power of the masses and revolution to create change also explains more persuasively why James held such a high opinion of popular culture and art meant for mass consumption by writers and artists. Such a perspective on literature, art, aesthetics, and the culture industry is welcome after reading Adorno's writings on US culture industry and jazz. His commentary on fascism, the Social Democratic Parties, Stalinism, and issues of race and gender are fascinating, particularly in the ways in which James does not speak directly to the countries of the world undergoing decolonization (Cuba and Ghana do appear frequently, however, as does the specter of the Cold War and imperialism from both blocs). One wonders to what extent the relationship between James and Williams shaped how much James felt comfortable saying overtly about labor and colonialism within the West Indies...

State Capitalism and World Revolution

CLR James's State Capitalism and World Revolution is a short but dense critique of Trotskyism, Stalinism, and the state capitalist dominant order of the world (as it was in the post-WWII period in an era of Fordism and planned economies with bureaucrats administering capital). Much has changed since the neoliberal order, but James offered profound critiques of limited definitions of socialism which assume state-owned property and industry rather than private control automatically meant a transition from capitalism and labor exploitation. As scholars like Matthew Quest have indicated, James's perspective here is central for understanding workers must have direct control of the means of production rather than bureaucrats, otherwise socialism is not achieved. James spends too much time basing his theory of state capitalism upon Lenin's criticisms of bureaucracy and nationalization for my taste, but this is a key insight upon which the failures of the Russian Revolution, Tito's Yugoslavia, and numerous other revolutionary moments provide learning moments on the central importance of the emancipation of labor.

In addition to the theory of state capitalism, James develops an intriguing idea in the final chapter. Philosophy, according to James, must be proletarian in order to overcome the role of the division of labor in manual and intellectual workers. If this division is not overcome, bureaucracy and bourgeois rationalism can only culminate in state capitalism, fascist reaction, and the reactionary (anti-egalitarian, anti-democratic) Christian Humanism. One wonders how this plays out in terms of bureaucracy, the neoliberal phase, and the contemporary crisis we face globally. How useful is the theory of state capitalism for today and where does one begin to see the future of the emancipation of labor in a post-Fordist economy?

A History of Pan-African Revolt

"All the things that Hitler was to do so well later Garvey was doing in 1920 and 1921."

A History of Pan-African Revolt, first published in 1938, is a seminal text in the Pan-Africanist and Marxist tradition. In the short work, Trinidadian Marxist C.L.R. James presents an overview of black resistance to slavery, colonialism, and labor exploitation in the US, Africa, and the Caribbean. As a Marxist, James emphasizes labor and class, yet also identifies religion as a tool for fomenting further anti-colonial movements, such as Simon Kimbangu and Chilembwe. James also presages future work on Africa, the West Indies and African American history by emphasizing black agency, constant struggle, and the importance of slavery in the development of industrialization and capitalism.

Strangely, James compares Garvey to Hitler as a demagogue, but is likely correct on Garvey's weak or nonexistent program for blacks. Yet, James recognized the importance international black solidarity, as well as the need for black mobilization on its own to combat capitalism. So, James supported independent black revolts while also seeing the need for unity across racial lines or national borders, such as the I.C.U. in South Africa and resistance from white workers.

Besides his critique of Garvey, one may also take issue with the rather rosy depiction of race relations during Trinidad's labor unrest in the 1930s, a world in which relations between Indians and Afro-Trinidadians are perhaps generalized as more effective for the labor cause than the reality. I'll have to research the 1930s in Trinidad in depth to properly ascertain the accuracy of James and his characterization of Trinidadian society. Likewise, James writes an epilogue which is too generous to Nyerere's Tanzanian socialist project, which was an utter failure according to Robin D.G. Kelley's introduction. 

Unquestionably, there are limitations to this visionary work, but as a progressive documentation of the continuous struggle of the black masses in Africa and the Diaspora, James provides a necessary perspective linking the fight for economic justice to that of anti-racist movements. Moreover, James places the massacre of the remaining French population in Haiti under Dessalines to an environment of British pressure, illustrating how independent Haiti's independence was limited by the reality of the 19th century world. Thus, as a document of black resistance from slavery to colonialism, James demonstrates that there is no contradiction in socialism and racial justice.