/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2668333
and what did Marx actually say about bourgeois revolutions like the Paris commune etc?

>>2671271
I think calling it a "movement" is being generous, at least as far as Dominican desire to reunify as Haiti. Most coversations in Dominican politics on this subject are around whether they should annex Haiti as part of the Dominican Republic (and in more openly fascist circles, purge the Black population to settle westward).

>>2671526
We can call them hypocrites for that, because that initial abolition had to be forced out of their pasty asses. The French couldn't fight off the Black and Maroon rebels and the British and Spanish. Slavery was abolished to entice the rebels to unite with the French military and fight off the Spanish and British. This worked, but the writing was immediately on the wall that slavery would likely be re-established as soon as the French felt that they could get away with it. Don't forget that these colonies and the laborers in them produced the vast majority of French exports and wealth. Regardless of Napoleon's personal leadership, France was 100% going to try to re-establish slavery in their colonies. This is why Leclerc's expedition was met with immediate and intense hostility upon arrival, despite Toussaint, Dessalines, Christophe, etc. still being pledged as officers in the French military. They weren't stupid and knew why they were there, and only briefly ceased fire when Leclerc lied and denied that he was re-establishing slavery.

>>2671536
The abolition of slavery wasn't forced tho, it was a very clearly established part of Robespierre's politial program, sure, it benefited France on the short term, but Robespierre had called for its abolishment for years, even before the Revolution, and obviously the ideals of the Revolution were very compatible with the abolition of slavery. And while the sugar trade was certanly lucrative, the colonial empire wasn't that important to the French economy after the 7 years war. Beyond that, the elites that profitted from the slave trade were generally opposed to Robespierre, and were strong supporters of Napoleon, Empress Josephine came from one of those families after all.

>>2671536
>purge the Black population
Dominicans are like one shade lighter if that lmao

Viewing the Haitian Revolution as organic is as naive as viewing the American Revolution as organic. I just think it’s weird that no one ever points out that it was Sonthonax and his 7000 troops who liberated the slaves in Haiti and who armed them. Slave revolts outside of freeing one or two plantations have never been a viable path to revolution. Every slave revolt has never attempted to change the system but ultimately to flee from the state as best they could. The view of the conflict as being carried out by blacks alone was something propagated by American slave owners to justify a tighter grip on slavery. Both White and Black nationalists benefit from this narrative. In reality it was the revolutionary French administration and French soldiers who were responsible.

>>2671614
I am Pakistani, what "cope" would I have, I'm just using pointing out that the usual western leftists being naive idealists

>>2671621
Sonthonax exploited an already present radical social force when he saw the writing on the wall. No different than other concessions offered to Haitians by France in order to prolong its rule.

Men make history as they engage with their definite material circumstances, not muh enlightened ideology

You're a retarded idealist

>>2671629
I’m well aware of the larger material factors at play, but a handful of men in the right place at the right time can change the world. There was no writing on the wall in Haiti, slave revolts don’t defeat armies or even local police/

>>2671629
Still, I think it's correct to view the Haiti revolution as an extension of the French Revolution.

>anti-liberal racial revolution
Haiti was fascist? Wow based based based

>>2671632
>slave revolts don’t defeat armies or even local police
When organized and politically unified they absolutely can. Enslaved Africans comprised the majority of the population, that they couldn't possibly defeat the French is just racist cope.

>>2671637
>I think it's correct to view the Haiti revolution as an extension of the French Revolution.
This is racist cope too.

>>2672005
How is it a racist cope ? it's straight up true, the Haitian revolutionnaries were inspired by the French Revolution and sought to recreated in Haiti, ironically in both cases they ended up the same way, with the proclamation of an Empire.

>>2672040
Except Dessalines was cool and Napoleon sucked

>>2672040
>the Haitian revolutionnaries were inspired by the French Revolution and sought to recreated in Haiti
Some of its leaders saw promise in it, but the point of the revolution was not to "recreate" it. Hell, the 1791 revolt took the side of the French monarchy! This framing stems from an overall racist mentality that the Haitians could not have had their own ideals and vision for society independent of the French. I have very little patience for it and authors with more principles than any of you (C. L. R. James, Étienne Charlier, etc.) have written whole books on it. There is no reason for anyone on the so-called "left" to be digging their heels in on this point except chauvinism and racism.

What about the Haitian revolution (1986)?

>>2672050
Also this. I will always fly the Black and red of Dessalines. Genuinely sucks that it was later associated with the Duvaliers.

Haitian Revolution was counter-revolutionary.

>>2672116
You mean the Dechoukaj. The writings of Haitians aligned with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement on this have long been translated into English.

>>2672005
I’m looking at this conflict as detached as possible. Unorganized and untrained ex-slaves are not a fighting force. A population can be transformed into one, but that requires investment and centralized leadership. If a slave revolt is ever successful, the ex-slaves goal was always to flee, because they knew they would be killed if an actual army approached them. If you believe I’m racist against Haitians, then I’m racist against the European slaves of Rome. Again I ask you to read the military history of these conflicts, they are absolutely necessary

>>2672142
About four pages in there’s a really interesting paragraph detailing how when Haitian peasants were displaced by US aid and agricultural imports but this didn’t erupt right away because migration was used as a social pressure valve, somewhat similar to how the US used migration westward as a social valve for the fully capitalist eastern seaboard.

>>2670077
you're the one bringing up their racist gutterbrained obsessions

>>2671609
Mike Duncan talks at length about Sonthonax, but every time I bring up Mike Duncan on here I get yelled at because he's a liberal, as if that immediately invalidates everything he has to say.

>>2672142
Do these groups still exist and have they published anything since the 2021 crisis?

>>2672176
Zanji slave revolt established a state near the heartland of the largest empire on earth that held for 15 years

They were sophisticated and organized, just like Haiti's, and it was to the grave detriment of their enemies to have underestimated them.

You're moving the goalpost and talking in generalizations since you aren't really educated on Haiti and it shows.

>>2672210
It's impossible to really know. RIM is gone and the Haitian communist movement has been principally underground since before Duvalier. New Communist Party of Haiti (Marxist-Leninist) had a website that's technically still up, but they seem to have lost control of it and a lot of their articles have been replaced by scam gambling bullshit.

My bet is that these groups or successors to them do still exist in Haiti outside of Port-au-Prince. Historically communists have conducted their best work outside the capital. Port-au-Prince's extractive relationship with the rest of the country has historically colored what politics dominate there, and today the vestiges of the old neo-colonial state and the "gangs" (paramilitaries) dominate that niche.

>>2672287
That makes sense, everything I’ve heard about the civil war since the death of Moise (still incomprehensible to me) is basically limited to Port Au Prince and the rest of the country is more or less functioning as usual

>>2672111
It's true that Haiti had a revolutionnary movement that started before the French Revolution, so yes, in that view, saying that it's merely an extension is generally ignorant of historical reality.
But it's also obvious that the form the revolution took was inspired by the French one. For exemple the revolutionnaries argued in favor of equality between all men based on the Declaration of the right of Men and Citizen, that the national assembly has expicitly rejected for Black Haitians.
So, when they rebelled in 1791, the Haitians were not asking for independance, but an end to slavery. They supported Louis XVI, who they viewed a moderating force against the relatively harsher local governor. This believed this because Louis XVI has signed on and accepted many of the revolutionnary demands, including the creation of a constitutional monarchy, he was viewed at the time as a progressive monarch. (He was secrely conspiring to bring back absolutism, but Haitians didn't know this) This meant that they were backing the revolution, not the reaction. While when Louis XVI got his head chopped up, the white owners sided with the British against the Republic. Louverture did help the Spanish at the time tho, as he yet didn't trust the French.
But once the revolution in France radicalised further, with Robespierre and the Jacobins in charge, they abolished slavery and Louveture realigned himself with France and refused to proclaim the independance of Haiti, instead seeing himself as a french citizen. It's only in 1801, so at the start of Napoleon's consulate, that he declared independance.
Even then, he justified himself using the univerallist principles of the French revolution, and he obviously turned against it when it was going back against those ideals.
I don't get why you're quoting CLR James at me, his most famous book is called "The Black Jacobins" And if anything he criticises the race war representation of the conflict, and puts the revolution back in the context of the Atlantic and French revolutions. If anything, he argues that the Haitians better represented those ideals then the French did. Not that these ideals came from Haiti.

>>2672222
How am I moving the goalposts by pointing out the objective fact that if an organic slave revolt ever succeeds, the slaves first priority is to flee? That makes perfect sense from their perspective, you and I would do the exact same thing. The Zanj was a radically different conflict that arose during a period of extreme internal strife in the Abbasid caliphate. The revolt, like Hati was not started by the slaves themselves but by an outsider, in the Zanj's case, a popular religious preacher who took advantage of the anarchy. He and his followers attacked individual slave estates, freed the slaves, and presented themselves as religious liberators, gradually freeing most of the slaves from the marshes and forming an Army. The Zanj revolt was one of many crises the Abbasids were dealing with, including the loss of Egypt to the Tulunids and Kharijite and Shia uprisings. The caliphate was fighting on every front. Only when al-Muwaffaq stabilized the army and re-centralized authority in the 880s did the Abbasids finally crush the rebellion.

>>2672392
And you’re right, I haven’t read much about Haiti. My only frame of reference is this military history book, and I would argue that it’s more relevant than 99% of post-colonial literature.

>>2668326
Pretty much

>>2672396
>this military history book
>it's more relevant than 99% of post-colonial literature
This is a hyperbolic and insane statement.

Napoleon reintroducing slavery when it was barely part of the country economy,and its dissolution was incredible at squashing dissent was truly the move of all time

>>2695729
His grave deserves to be filled with moose urine

>>2668326
I thought we went over this already, the reason Haiti gets hate is because their flag is awful.

>>2695716
It is an in-depth look at the Army and the State, the two aspects of the national question that matter above everything else. Why did Haiti accept to give reparations to France? Its Army was weaker and its navy was non-existent. Why did it fail to unify the island? Its Army’s command structure was ill-equped and had no formal schools for military education. That defeat by the Dominicans destroyed the remaining Army and what little order existed, each region of Haiti essentially became a semi-independent fiefdom afterwards.

>>2672396
>>2696793
Beyond parody. Hardly even warrants spitting in your general direction, let alone a constructed response.

>>2696296
the white box looks akward

>>2696910
Let me guess, you think guerrilla warfare by Che is some kind of holy text and that following it exactly will automatically lead to revolution.

>>2696953
Lmao no? Che was a good man but Focoism has been thoroughly demonstrated to not be a universal strategy for revolutionary warfare. Do you rely on the US Coast Guard's "official historian" to inform you about Maoism too? Clown shit.

>>2696989
So you have some sense, so you can understand that ex-slaves, without a pre-existing organized structure don’t automatically just rise up. They usually flee to rural areas and then start their own communities
>>2696989
> Do you rely on the US Coast Guard's "official historian" to inform you about Maoism too? Clown shit.
That opinion is probably worth more than most Maoist intellectuals.

>>2697037
>so you can understand that ex-slaves, without a pre-existing organized structure don’t automatically just rise up.
I'm interested to hear who you believe is capable of organizing these structures. That intentionality and organization is needed for successful revolution is not some enlightened observation to make and nobody has disputed that, it's a boring truism that contributes nothing to this conversation. In the case of the Haitian revolution, the organizational structures which made the initial rebellion and later independence war possible was principally the underground socio-religious institutions of the enslaved (which formed the germ of the revolutionary ideology and nationalism of the Haitians) and the maroon communities in the forests (which were consistently the most militant and fiercely armed element of the struggle). Both of these were formed by Haitians themselves, rather than some out-and-out racist narrative of a Frenchman doing it for them peddled by US imperialists.
>They usually flee to rural areas and then start their own communities
You stating this tells me that you haven't even bothered to read my initial posts in this thread, where I repeatedly reference the maroon communities involved in the revolution. That they flee doesn't remove them from the equation, nor does it remove their ability to act as human beings would and organize themselves for greater forms of struggle. The survival of these communities in many cases is what makes later struggle possible. You insist that slaves simply flee, but that isn't the whole nature of these people and reducing them like this is, again, racist. It's incredible that you position yourself as even remotely knowledgeable on this simply because you read some US military guy's book that briefly talks about the Haitian revolution. You aren't even at the level of some annoying kid who claims expertise cause he took an elective class on the subject in college. You have done no investigation and have no right to speak.
>That opinion is probably worth more than most Maoist intellectuals.
Bait used to be believable.

>>2697196
I’m not going to pretend I was Rambo or that I ever saw combat, but I did serve in a military unit for a while. From that experience I can say there’s a massive difference between actual soldier training and simply handing workers or slaves guns and expecting them to function as an Army. Even the Indigenous and maroon communities certain types fetishize are not soldiers. You need a proper pre-existing structure to turn people into soldiers, and that’s what the local French revolutionaries(the ones who actually freed the slaves) provided. Like I said you’re buying into the same narrative that both black and white american nationalists push for their own petty agendas. And I’m not joking when I say that works of military theory often provide better insight into sociology and history than the overwhelming majority of postcolonial works.

Haiti is a pretty sad example of fascism intergrating itself in the population of formerly oppressed peoples, Dumarsais Estimé really isn't that bad but I believe him collabating with the bourgesisie class allowed counter-revolutionaries in the goverment, making the US's job in couping him way easier.
>>2696989
I wonder why the cuban goverment never attempting in establishing a socialist goverment in Haiti alligned with castro, infact why doesn't Cuba do it right now?

>>2697196
Mao Anon can you give me the facts on the allegation that Haitian revolutionaries turned on whites who had supported them during the initial revolution?

>>2697688
In short, that's a mischaracterization at best. Whites of all classes flat-out didn't support the initial 1791 revolt starting in Le Cap. The overall reaction was one of terror and revulsion. White "support" would only come when the struggle transitioned to one between the old society and the new society brought about in France. Haitian Communist scholar Étienne Charlier outlines the relationship as:

>Apart from the grand blancs (high officials, large planters, and big merchants), there were the petit blancs or small whites (minor officials, employees of large estates, and workers). In the struggle between new French colonial officials and the conservative autonomous assemblies of the settlers (struggle between the old and new regimes and their ideologies), they sided with the freedmen and the Governor, who was supposed to translate the revolutionary message of the new France to Saint-Domingue, but as the struggle radicalized with freedmen and slaves in command, they would disappear from the political scene as an independent force.

This raises some important facts: 1, the "support" of the petit blancs was at best incidental (mainly a matter of supporting the French revolution rather than support for emancipation) and was predicated on the possibility of raising their social and economic standing to that comparable to the grand blancs, and of their becoming a more prominent political force in the colonial government. They supported emancipation insofar as it weakened the old plantation aristocracy and their ability to resist the new government. 2, when it became clear that the Black majority in the colony had de facto control of the army and colonial government after the British, Spanish, and French monarchists were defeated, the petit blancs would cease to act as an independent bloc and rejoined the grand blancs in opposing Black power. This tells us the Black majority never "turned on" the petit blanc minority — rather Blacks successfully resisted counter-revolutionary attempts to place them back in servitude after their usefulness to whites ran out.

What further proves this to be a mischaracterization, if not a flat-out racist lie, is that the Polish soldiers who defected from the French army and fought on the side of the revolution were embraced as Haitian after the war and allowed to remain. Their descendants still live in Haiti, founding the town of Cazale. There you'll find plenty of Haitians sporting lighter skin and occasionally blue eyes.

>>2697717
Very interesting, ty comrade. It sounds somewhat reminiscent of the way in which Northern capitalists during the US Civil War supported abolition as a means to undermine the Confederacy, but then assisted them in maintaining the subjugation of the Black population afterwards. Can you recommend any good books on the Haitian Revolution?

>>2697723
It's a common recommendation, but The Black Jacobins is likely the best book on the revolution in English at the moment. I'm working on slowly translating Étienne Charlier's book The Historical Formation of the Haitian Nation, which is presently only available in French and is very hard to find. When that's finished (it'll be a while) that will be my recommendation.