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.