Haitian Communist Party

Founding and original program

The Haitian Communist Party (abbreviated as PCH, from French) was founded in the summer of 1934 by a group of young communist activists in the capital Port-au-Prince. Among them was the Marxist writer Jacques Roumain, who would become the party's first leader. The PCH replaced the Anti-Imperialist League, which Roumain had created a few months prior with fellow communist Georges Petit.^[1][2]

In June 1934, the central committee of the PCH released the party's program, The Schematic Analysis, 1932–1934,^[b] co-authored by Roumain and Étienne Charlier, a core party member who had been educated in Paris. The program subscribed to Marxism–Leninism and offered the first Marxist critique of Haitian society.^[3][4][5] Its first section criticized the Haitian nationalist movement.^[1] Roumain argued that the nationalist movement failed to liberate Haitians because of class struggle:^[6]

The nationalist movement was incapable of fulfilling its promises because these nationalist promises collided with the nationalist bourgeoisie. ... The fight against imperialism is a fight against capitalism, foreign and local, and the excess of the Haitian bourgeoisie and the bourgeois politicians, valets of imperialism and cruel exploiters of the workers and peasants.^[7]

The second section of the program analyzed anti-black racism in Haiti from a Marxist perspective. Roumain proposed that racial conflict in Haitian society was in fact a manifestation of class struggle, arguing that the majority-black proletariat and petite bourgeoisie were oppressed by a bourgeoisie that just so happened to be mostly mulatto (i.e. of mixed descent). Roumain further contended that other politicians were using race to obfuscate the more pressing issue of class struggle. The program concluded by calling for the proletariat to unite against the bourgeoisie, regardless of skin color, under the slogan "colour is nothing, class is everything".^[7]

Arrest of Roumain and decline

The establishment of the PCH alarmed the Haitian authorities, who began a crackdown on leftists in August 1934. Roumain was arrested and charged with treason; his case rested largely on a letter in which he requested "matériel" from a Haitian communist living in New York City. The authorities interpreted "matériel" to mean explosives, but Roumain had in fact been asking for purchased literature related to the convictions of the Scottsboro Boys of Alabama, whose release he had been supporting.^[8] Roumain protested his detention, stating that brochures were not explosives and communists were not terrorists. International leftist and black organizations also pressed for his release. The court nonetheless convicted him and sentenced him to three years in prison.^[9] In 1936, President Sténio Vincent pardoned Roumain and other leftists because he no longer felt threatened by the left; in the previous year, he extended his presidential powers and tenure through a successful popular referendum. Roumain subsequently left Haiti on 15 August, making his way to Europe for what would become a five-year-long self-exile.^[10]

The PCH faltered after Roumain's departure, despite attempts by its young cadres to continue the party's work. Party members attempted but failed to form a network of clandestine cells concentrated in the communes of Gonaïves and Les Cayes. A communist-led labor union of bus operators created in late 1936 was quickly suppressed by the authorities by early 1937. A theoretical journal, Vigie ("lookout"), was also short-lived. These activities, while relatively minor, convinced Vincent to adopt a hardline anti-communist stance. In November 1936, he issued a presidential decree against so-called "violent" and "anarchistic" communism, threatening its supporters with up to one year in prison and a fine.^[10]

Attempted revival by Roumain

Roumain returned to the Caribbean in 1940, residing in neighboring Cuba for an extended period. Inspired by the well-organized Cuban communists, Roumain decided to attempt a revival of the PCH under his leadership. He returned to Haiti on 17 May 1941, a few days after Vincent was replaced by Élie Lescot.^[11] Roumain found himself alienated from the Port-au-Prince working class due to his five-year self-exile, and a schism formed in June between Roumain and the more moderate socialists that had been part of the PCH.^[11] Roumain was also fearful of being arrested again, and an August police seizure of communist literature he had ordered convinced him to give up his hopes of reorganizing the PCH.^[12]

Lescot sought to pacify and isolate Roumain by offering him a government position, and he ultimately accepted the role of Haitian chargé d'affaires to Mexico in October 1942. This surprised many of Roumain's colleagues, particularly the socialists of the former PCH. Roumain left for Mexico that month but remained vocal against Lescot's actions against Haitian leftists and workers.^[13] Roumain returned to Haiti on 7 August 1943, intending to challenge Lescot, who had extended his presidential term and postponed legislative elections earlier that year.^[14] Haitian communists, whose numbers had grown since Lescot took office, hoped for Roumain to disavow Lescot and reform the PCH. However, Roumain, who had already been sick for many years due to malaria he had contracted in prison, died suddenly on 18 August.^[15]

Second iteration under Juste Constant

On 11 January 1946, Lescot and his cabinet were overthrown and exiled by the Haitian military, amid student protests against his authoritarian rule. Crucially to the communists, the bans on political parties, independent press, and unions were lifted.^[16][17] Believing Lescot's ouster to be a pivotal moment akin to the Russian Revolution, Edris Saint-Armand led a group of former PCH members and other Marxists in reconstituting the PCH in early February. They launched a new daily newspaper, Combat and adopted a red star and hammer and sickle as their logo.^[18][19]

The party adopted a radical new program that argued for, among other things, the establishment of a "Haitian Socialist Soviet Republic", the adoption of Soviet-style political structures, the collectivization of all land and industries, and the renaming of the military to the "People's Army".^[20][21] Cuba's communists severely criticized the program as unrealistic and not in sync with the international communist movement, going so far as to deride their Haitian counterparts as "infantile leftists".^[22] The Cubans retained their disapproval even after the Haitians revised and moderated their program.^[20] The PCH also failed to gain recognition from the Soviet Union or support from the Communist Party USA, which had regional influence in North America.^[22]

While the new PCH was ostensibly following the ideas of Roumain, the party membership did not include his closest ideological allies. The new party leadership consisted of Saint-Armand, Felix Dorléans Juste Constant, Max Menard, and Roger Mercier, with Juste Constant as the party's president. An Episcopalian preacher and close friend of Roumain's, Juste Constant forfeited his parish upon assuming the party's top leadership role.^[23]

The PCH was one of eleven groups that formed the Haitian Revolutionary Front on 8 February 1946. A progressive coalition, Juste Constant served as one of its vice-presidents. The front held marches and protests, with supporters singing The Internationale and La Dessalinienne.^[22] However, the front was dominated by noiristes who disliked Marxism and fundamentally disagreed with the communists in regard to whether race or class was the primary issue in Haiti. Consequently, the PCH left the front on 23 March.^[24][25]

Unlike its first iteration, the PCH under Juste Constant argued that race was an integral part of the class struggle in Haiti (although it remained opposed to the idea that race was the primary issue in the country).^[26] The predominantly black PCH was accordingly critical of the mulatto communists leading its main rival on the left, the Popular Socialist Party (PSP).^[27] The PCH and PSP nonetheless worked together to establish unions, whose legality had been restored following Lescot's ouster.^[28] In the run-up to the 12 May 1946 parliamentary election, the PCH would abandon this line in regard to race, in response to the growing influence of the noiristes.^[29][30]

In the May election, Juste Constant simultaneously ran for president (through the Chamber of Deputies election), senator, and mayor of Port-au-Prince. The Haitian left was disunited against the noiristes, and the left's politically diverse slate of candidates lost the election decisively. While Juste Constant was voted into parliament, his fellow parliamentarians elected Dumarsais Estimé as president.^[31][32] The PCH and PSP consequently formed an alliance named the National Defence Committee (CDN), which demanded new elections and a civilian provisional government to lead the country until then. The CDN's threat of a general strike was ignored by the authorities and the group failed to overturn the election results.^[33]

Second decline and dissolution

In March 1947, a report titled "Communism in Haiti" was sent to the British foreign minister, claiming the Soviet Union was infiltrating the Haitian political scene in an attempt to spark a race war and Sovietize the country. The British at the time were cautious of communism arriving in their neighboring colony of Jamaica, which they were in the process of granting self-governance.^[34] The report contained several exaggerations about the PCH, such as the claim that 90 percent of Haitian youth were PCH members and that the PCH had received significant funds from the Soviets through the Cuban and Mexican communist parties. The US embassy in Haiti criticized the report amid external exaggerations of communism's influence in the country.^[34]

Ironically, the PCH was in a period of decline when the report surfaced. The departure of several youths from the party leadership lessened the appeal of the PCH among young intelligentsia, and Juste Constant resigned as party leader on 10 March 1947, after the circulation of a pro-Estimé pamphlet that was falsely attributed to him. The PCH formally dissolved itself on 22 April 1947, amid a rise in financial debts, pressure from domestic opponents, and anti-communist persecution in the Caribbean.^[34]

Citations

Works cited