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. 

Michel Hector

A few years ago, my interest in the history and development of Haitian labor movements and radicalism led me to a renewed interest in the works of Michel Hector. From his various works written under the pseudonym Jean-Jacques Doubout to his later writings on the Haitian Revolution and the genesis of the state, Hector illustrates the utility of Marxist and materialist theory for understanding Haitian historical development. Furthermore, as a militant involved in the labor and socialist movements, Hector's objective analysis offers key insights into different moments and conflicts over strategy, ideology, tactics, and goals of the various left-wing political parties and labor federations. Furthermore, without Hector and his legacy rooted in the long history of Haitian Marxist critique, contemporary scholarship on the Haitian Left would be impoverished and sorely lacking the testimony and analysis of a participant of its struggles.

His work, in both Spanish and French essays and monographs, also provides key sources and an interpretative framework for understanding Haiti's position in the larger political economy of the last two centuries. The earlier work written under the name of Doubout explores the Marxist framework for analyzing the development of social classes and the "semi-feudal" nature of the economy for most of the 19th century. Doubout explains this in Feodalisme ou capitalisme by arguing that the Haitian Revoluton was neither anti-capitalist, nor anti-feudal. One can debate the utility of using terms like feudal, but if understood as "feudal-like," the dichotomy is warranted. Then, the rupture beginning in 1915 with the US Occupation and a rapid increase in the size and number of large-scale agro-industrial firms and proletarianization proceeds. Hector's work follows this development to the early labor movement of the 1920s and 1930s (through figures such as Joseph Jolibois, Jacques Roumain, and Christian Beaulieu), paving the way for the "explosion" of 1946 and independent labor's influence on politics.

Hector, however, also outlines the importance of changes in political economy during the second half of the 19th century with a limited opening of Haiti to foreign capital and enterprise, particularly after 1860. Hector is one of the few historians I have come across whose work encompasses that period in class formation and the extent to which the US Occupation merely accelerated a process that had begun in the later decades of the 19th century. His works include useful chronologies and timelines on the development of capitalist industries in the country, pivotal dates for strikes, and the formations of unions and political parties. Hector's also one of the few sources who wrote about artisans and wage-workers in that period, 1860-1915, including the incipient proto-proletariat into what may be early formations of class consciousness. 

While some may take issue with his Marxist-inspired critiques of the MOP's Fignolé or the UIH's lack of a clear political program or almost anarchist-inspired politics (essentially, playing with fire just as the Duvalier dictatorship was increasingly tyrannical), Hector's oeuvre is foundational for any kind of clear comprehension of the history of modern Haiti. His later work, which, unfortunately, I have not completely read, encompasses social movements and political crisis, such as the piquets of the 1840s and the 1946 revolution. A return to studying early Haiti also manifests, requiring close reading for analysis of the colonial period. In short, Hector's long list of published writings assist in elucidating the entirety of our past, as well as the applicability of Marxist framework for the Caribbean. Rest in peace, Michel Hector Auguste.

CPUSA

Although problematic like most documentaries, this somewhat sympathetic history of the Communist Party is full of interesting anecdotes about the experiences of its members. Furthermore, the documentary recognizes how the Communists played a pivotal role in numerous progressive social causes, particularly during the Depression. For that reason alone, closer scrutiny of the CPUSA is required. Of course, my reasons for any interest in it at all is related to its connections with Caribbean organizations and figures. 

Cyril Briggs and the African Blood Brotherhood

Ted Vincent on the African Blood Brotherhood. Essential history from the Pacifica Radio Archives on a key organization grappling with issues of race and class. Issues of the Crusader paper can be found online, too, for additional information Briggs and the ABB. Indeed, one satirical cartoon from their paper hints directly at conflicts with Garvey and the UNIA, bringing to mind similar debates between Marxists and noirists in a Haitian context during the 1930s and 1940s. Other episodes of the series includes a segment on Hubert Harrison and Harry Haywood.

Henry Rosemond and the New York-Caribbean Nexus

Henry Rosemond in the Daily Worker 

Although the number of Haitians in New York City was very small in comparison to other Caribbean groups during the early decades of the 20th century, the Caribbean-New York nexus for black radicalism also existed for Haitians. The arrival of Haitians coincided with the US Occupation of the island. Some of the Haitians in New York at this time were involved with nationalist, anti-Occupation movements, such as the Union Patriotique (UP). Joseph Mirault, a journalist and member of the UP, for example, worked as a Pullman porter. Others, such as Henry Rosemond, was involved in the garment worker union, the Needle Trade Industrial Union, as well as anti-imperialist, black labor leftist circles (principally, the American Negro Labor Congress).

Margaret Stevens, in her excellent Red International and Black Caribbean: Communists in New York City, Mexico and the West Indies, 1919-1939, convincingly demonstrates how important this New York City-Caribbean connection was for Haiti. Rosemond, according to Stevens, returned to Haiti at some point in 1929, after the student strike, and was known to have disseminated anti-imperialist and radical literature. She demonstrates how Rosemond's involvement with the American Negro Labor Congress and Communists in the States shaped his belief in class struggle, radical rejections of US imperialism, and interracial struggle. 

The preponderance of West Indians among black radicals in New York likely also shaped Rosemond, since Richard B. Moore, George Padmore, and others, coming out of the African Blood Brotherhood and similar organizations, would have found commonality with him as  fellow immigrants from colonized Caribbean islands. Black nationalists, black socialists, and radical labor organizers of Harlem must have left an impact on Rosemond, and he appears to have had some sort of impact on Roumain and the first Communist party in Haiti. Thus, one must not only situate Roumain and the origins of Haitian Marxism within a Latin American context, but a wider African-American and Caribbean world in which debates on race, class, and nationalism were ongoing. 

Unfortunately, references to Rosemond do not, to my knowledge, appear in any of Roumain's writings, but Rosemond referenced Roumain in articles for the African-American press (Pittsburgh Courrier, for instance). Moreover, Stevens asserts that Rosemond played a role in establishing an Anti-Imperialist League cell in Haiti, which would have certainly attracted attention from Roumain, Petit, Beaulieu and others. It's not difficult to imagine that when Beaulieu and Roumain traveled to New York in 1932, they likely profited from contacts given by Rosemond. Rosemond's experience with labor organizing, strikes, and Communist party structures would have made him an ideal source of contacts for Roumain, Beaulieu, and Charlier.

In addition to the New York connection with left-wing Caribbean activism and ideologies, a Paris nexus would also appear to exist, particularly through Le cri des negres and the African, Antillean, and European leftist organizations in France. Michel Hector's work uses these Francophone sources, which may explain why Rosemond is not referenced in his work. However, the Paris-Caribbean nexus was likely just as important in terms of building upon earlier Pan-African congresses in Europe as well as directly putting into conversation Haitians, Antilleans, and Africans, such as Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté. Haitian contributors to these France-based Pan-African left journals included Ludovic Lacombe and Jean Barau, who contributed articles on events in their homeland from perspectives of labor, religion, race, and anti-imperialism. 

In summation, Henry Rosemond's experiences, writings, and activism require those interested in tracking the development of the Haitian labor movement and Marxism to consider the significance of New York as an epicenter of black radicalism. Paris, like New York, was also important, but New York was closer while producing Haitians directly engaged in labor struggles. Indeed, Rosemond was nearly beaten to death by police during a strike in 1929, the same strike in which he believed black and white workers could come together over to advance working-class interests. Yet, Rosemond and the ANLC were not class reductionists either, suggesting a possible nuanced interpretation of the interplay of class and race in Caribbean and US settings. What is needed is a more detailed overview of Rosemond's life and work in Haiti, and the extent to which the New York and Paris links were followed by similar developments in the island.