Preface (1954)Relatively few in number have, concerning the formation of the nation, presented the results of their work, and that work has been fragmentary. But through their work the materiality of the facts is now established, the essential character of the events acquired, barring, as always, a few possible clarifications and details.
It was inevitable that, from these accumulated scattered materials, a general overview would emerge; where the interplay of all these fragments, succeeding one another and clashing according to a rhythm, could be shown to conform to the laws of history which condition the constants of social evolution since the organization of the first societies.
The author of this book devoted himself to this task. Here is the result of enormous labor. So many questions which, until now, remained obscure in their complexity or poorly explained in their causality, despite the efforts of researchers, are treated and analyzed here according to the strictest methods of modern information. The mechanism that was the secret driving force, under a myriad of appearances, whose processes disconcerted the shortsightedness of many commentators, is explained here.
With an unparalleled wealth of detail, colonial society is brought back to life, torn between the demands of a revolutionary period and the imperative of class interests. Hence its inconsistencies, its sycophantic concessions, a seesaw game that is merely the political representation of the contradictions inherent to a political system destined for the worms. Hence the tenacious, fierce struggle of a reactionary bourgeoisie braced in defense of its privileges against the rush of the enslaved masses determined to violently seize the end of their exploitation; against the rise of the freedmen seeking to complete, through the conquest of political rights, the status acquired through the power of money.
The clarity of this critique, sharpened by the objective methods of the laws of science, is manifest in the examination of this Southern War where, alongside a question of epidermal nuance which is certainly not to be minimized, there is inscribed an economic content of capital importance. This refers to the action of the two colonialist powers, the English and the Yankee, trying to secure their interests against the French, as well as the class struggle in Saint-Domingue which had reached a point of exasperation.
The ton
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.