The Iron Heel

As perhaps the first 20th century dystopian novel, Jack London's The Iron Heel is a fascinating read for how its predictions of the 20th century successively and unsuccessfully predicted the course of the era. An avowed socialist by the time the novel was published in 1907, London's Ernest and Avis Everhard thoroughly believe in Marxian social evolution and stages of production, but the particular nature of the trusts in the US combining even further and seizing governmental authority openly to institute an Oligarchy (the titular Iron Heel), prevents for centuries the "Brotherhood of Man" (socialist revolution). Like the authoritarian regimes of future dystopias, the Oligarchy openly controls all media, institutions, decimates the small business-class and middle-class, and relies on a "labor aristocracy" and Mercenaries to keep the regime afloat while constructing 'wonder-cities' like Asgard and Ardis. 

Needless to say, the miserable proletariat, already weak before the Oligarchy seizes power in the 1910s, has become a mass of slaves forced to give their labor to any projects organized by the Oligarchy. The rest of the world has also fallen under their own forms of the oligarchy or developed socialist commonwealths, but the US Oligarchy is the world power after a near-war with Germany. Indeed, North America and the Caribbean fall under the control of the Iron Heel, while Japan dominates East Asia, the British Empire crumbles, and India eventually frees itself. As for social relations under the Iron Heel, a favored cast of skilled labor and the Mercenaries receive special privileges in the regime, even given separate housing in superior cities, just as a way to divide the working-class and create an unstoppable military class. Through strict segregation of these social classes and passports, the Oligarchy has created a mass of working and unemployed wretches, described as almost bestial in the account of Everhard.

Like historical authoritarian regimes of the 20th century or future dystopian novels, the Oligarchy also relies on a vast number of agents, provocateurs, and spies to monitor the resistance and control their subjects. Beliving fully in the moral righteousness of their rule, as the capitalists in complete control of profit and labor who have saved civilization, the underlying ideology of the regime is power for the sake of power. In order to make use of the surplus-value of US production, they have conquered as much of the world market as possible, thus investing the rest in futurist wonder-cities where the socialists of the distant future reside after the fall of the Oligarchy. Since the reader already knows, from the notes of the future reader centuries in the future, that Ernest and Avis failed to unseat the Iron Heel, most of the novel focuses on the early rise and socialist resistance to the Oligarchy. Much of the final chapters comprise the "Chicago Commune," a reference to the Iron heel's brutal crackdown on the "people of the abyss" and socialists planning a revolution, taking the reader along the way into a journey of urban hell. Bombings, mobs, machine guns used to mow down the slum dwellers from Chicago's South Side, and inter-building combat bring to mind future urban revolts of the 20th century totalitarian regimes, such as the Warsaw Uprising. Undoubtedly, urban warfare and massacres of WWII were already predicted by London in 1907. 

However, London's fictional Oligarchy lacks any interest in "race." Unlike Nazi ideology other totalitarian regimes, there is no palingenesis or overt white supremacy undergirding the Iron Heel. Even though London himself was racist and a proponent of eugenics, there is a sympathetic "mulatto" character on the side of the Cause, who makes a brief appearance in the story. The other black staff on the Pullman train to Chicago are not stigmatized by race, either.  And, perhaps through references to social evolution and Darwinism, unfavorable comparisons to Native Americans are made by Ernest Everhard, suggesting the atavistic qualities of "savage" peoples and their parallels with the petit-bourgeois who cannot see their future futility in social evolution. Yet, outside of these scattered allusions to non-whites, the working-class of London's novel is almost entirely made up of white Americans and European immigrants. Arguably, Ernest Everhard himself and Avis's description of him as a natural aristocrat (unlike most of the masses under the Oligarchy), may hint at some eugenic or pro-Anglo-Saxon politics, but the Oligarchy itself never utilizes racial ideology. I would not be surprised if this is a reflection of London and the Socialist Party's own racial biases and belief in eugenics, focused as they were on whites and the perfectibility of humanity that socialist would usher.

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.

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. 

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.

W.E.B. Du Bois on Socialism and the American Negro

Someone has been so kind as to share W.E.B. DuBois's speech for a socialist audience in Madison, WI. Speaking on African-Americans and socialism, this speech provides an interesting example of the last shift of DuBois's life, a shift to socialism and Pan-Africanism. In addition to this fascinating talk from 1960, one can find the 'audio autobiography' recordings of DuBois explaining the story of his life to Moses Asch, available on Youtube. Once you realize how long he lived and how influential he was in US intellectual history, his life story becomes even more impressive. 

Cumbite

"La sangre es la muerte. El agua la vida."

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's film adaptation of Jacques Roumain's famous novel, Gouverneurs de la rosée, is quite faithful to the text. Taking place in a Haitian rural setting in 1940, the film closely aligns with the plot of Roumain's pivotal novel. Manuel returns from Cuba, meets the romantic interest, reacquaints himself with a birthplace that is in decline and torn apart by a family feud, promises to find a new spring or source of water to help restore agriculture in the reason, and his sacrifice pays off in the end. The deceptively simple plot of Roumain's novel is of course more detailed and nuanced (particularly regarding the role of religion in human liberation and specifically, the conditions in which the peasantry toil), and this relatively short film manages to capture most of that complexity. 

The actors, who I believe are Cubans of Haitian descent in this 1964 film, speak Haitian Creole in key moments (the lengthy scene of the Vodou ceremony, the coumbite at the film's conclusion, and the wake for Manuel), which adds a sense of authenticity. The landscape is mountainous, barren, and eerily reminiscent of Haiti (and right away, when Manuel gets off the bus and walks to his village, the infertile land and its eroded hills symbolize the decay of the community), which adds another layer of accuracy to the Cuban film. Roumain's socialist and optimistic tale also matches thematically the early years of the Cuban Revolution and the socialist government of Castro, thereby making this film a socialist art film rendering of a socialist novel. 

On the question of religion, the film also captures some of the ambiguity of Roumain. The Vodou ceremony scene, one of the longest in the film, is beautifully done yet understated, and Manuel appears uncomfortable but participates in the dancing anyway, much like Manuel in the novel, who does not necessarily believe in the lwa but comes to accept their importance for the community, particularly his mother. Moreover, Vodou symbols introduce the film, thereby establishing a pattern in which Vodou aesthetics and belief are integral to the worldview of the characters. While the Catholic and Vodou prayers and rituals of the community may not be personal belief of Manuel, as previously mentioned, but are not divorced from the social or class interests of the peasantry or proletariat. By not relying on stereotypes and using Cubans of Haitian descent, the nuances of Vodou as a religious philosophy (and Afro-Haitian culture in general) are portrayed respectfully.

As a nice touch to the themes of the Cuban Revolution, the patriarchal assumptions or sexism of the novel are not overstated in the film, although women characters are, besides Manuel's mother (and Annaise or the manbo) largely ignored. Yet, the exclusion of women at all is challenged by the powerful scene introducing the viewer to Manuel's parents. In it his mother rests against the central pillar, literally symbolizing the potomitan saying about Haitian women. Manuel's mother goes on to play an important role in the film, too, ushering in a general coumbite to finish the canal and irrigate everyone's fields. Annaise is plagued by the original text material as a weaker character, but Manuel's mother more than makes up for it while his father, Bienaime, is far less central to the film than in the novel. 

Overall, Cumbite is a worthwhile film. Drawing from one of most widely respected works of Haitian literature, Alea manages to capture most of the text's magical appeal and politicized intent, thereby connecting this Haitian community to the much larger world of the Caribbean, capitalism, as well as exploitation. The migrant Haitians returning from Cuba were hardly apolitical as the case of Manuel indicates, and the fact that this film was made in the 1960s, only a few years after the successful Cuban Revolution, suggests that the film's political resonance with socialist Cuba possessed positive goals for social advances. Unfortunately, the film could have done a better job incorporating the Haitian state into the story a little more, but for a film of around 90 minutes, this is probably as good as it gets.