“There is an urgent need for [the new communism] to be taken up, broadly, in this society and in the world as a whole: everywhere people are questioning why things are the way they are, and whether a different world is possible; everywhere people are talking about ‘revolution’ but have no real understanding of what revolution means, no scientific approach to analyzing and dealing with what they are up against and what needs to be done; everywhere people are rising up in rebellion but are hemmed in, let down and left to the mercy of murderous oppressors, or misled onto paths which only reinforce, often with barbaric brutality, the enslaving chains of tradition; everywhere people need a way out of their desperate conditions, but do not see the source of their suffering and the path forward out of the darkness.”

This quote from Bob Avakian (The New Communism, p. 91) is universally true, but nowhere is it truer than in Haiti today.

Once again Haiti’s 12 million people have been plunged into a devastating crisis. Heavily armed gangs and militias control the capital city, Port-au-Prince, where about one in four Haitians live, the majority in impoverished slums. An estimated 350,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and many others are huddled at home afraid to go out. Nearly half of Haiti’s food is imported, but the gangs have forced the main airport and seaport to close, choking off the food supply. Major roads are blocked, cutting off trucks bringing food, fuel and water to the city. Starvation looms. The healthcare system is on the brink of collapse.

Every honest and knowledgeable observer knows that the dire situation in Haiti is overwhelmingly the responsibility of U.S. imperialism, which has dominated Haiti for more than 100 years. (The U.S. displaced, but also followed in the footsteps of, French colonialism/imperialism, which openly enslaved Haitians for more than 100 years. The vast wealth squeezed out of France’s slave plantations in Haiti helped lay the foundation for France’s “civilized way of life,” while condemning Haitian people to a short life of misery and brutal death from overwork, disease or outright murder—life expectancy for a Haitian slave was 21 years! (See “Haiti: a long descent to hell.”) 

At every single point in its reign, the U.S. ignored or spat on the interests, rights, dignity, well-being and sovereignty of Haitian people. It invaded repeatedly, and occupied the country (as well as organizing other foreign forces to occupy it) for periods of decades. It has backed the most savage and sadistic dictators—the Duvalier dynasty—that literally struck terror in the hearts of millions of Haitians with its networks of spies, murderous paramilitaries, prisons and torture chambers. It has overthrown popularly elected leaders and imposed unelected ones. It has crippled Haitian peasant agriculture which until 20 years ago employed the large majority of Haitians and at one time had made Haiti self-sufficient in food. (See “The U.S. in Haiti: A Century of Domination and Misery”)

And now one of the highest officials of the U.S. government, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has pulled together U.S. “assets” in the region—pro-U.S. leaders of other Caribbean countries—in Jamaica in order to impose a new “solution” on Haiti. (Some members of the pro-U.S. Haitian ruling class “participated” via Zoom.) 

And what is the U.S. “solution”? To create a “transitional council” of pro-U.S. Haitian elites that will appoint a prime minister, who will then create the façade of a “legitimate” government, that will (Blinken hopes) stabilize the situation enough to be able to bring in an occupying force of 1,000 Kenyan soldiers to “restore order”… and then stage “free elections” for president as a way to sanctify the U.S.’s murderous reign with the Holy Water of “democracy.” 

Let’s be clear: at every single point in the 220-year history of the U.S. “relationship” with the nation of Haiti, including the 109 years in which the U.S. has dominated the country, every single thing it has done has been from the standpoint of strengthening and enriching the U.S. empire at the expense of Haiti and its people. This is why the revcoms have repeatedly stressed that no good can possibly come from any further or deeper U.S. intervention.

That is important, it is fundamental to understanding the situation today. BUT, it doesn’t answer the question: what is needed to get out of this nightmare?

Many people, some well-meaning, say that “free and fair elections” are the answer. “Let Haitians decide—through elections—the future of Haiti.” 

But Haiti—like our whole planet!—is in desperate need of deepgoing and fundamental change. The centuries of colonialist/imperialist rule have not just looted and tormented the Haitian people, they have fundamentally twisted everything in order to fit the needs of imperialism. The “political class” in Haiti—overwhelmingly representatives of Haitian capitalists who thrive on the exploitation of Haitian people and are inseparably tied to and dependent on the imperialists—have no desire to transform the economy, agriculture, the educational system, the terrible devastation of the environment wrought by slavery and then imperialism, the governing structures, the police or anything else to serve the needs of the masses of people and of humanity.  

And even if somehow someone was elected who did have that “desire,” and even if they weren’t rapidly overthrown by internal or foreign reactionary forces, the kind of transformations needed cannot be done by “edict.”

In today’s world, in Haiti and elsewhere, revolutionary change means that revolutionary leaders, have to come together and take up the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian. This provides a scientific method and guide to understanding the world, and to mobilizing the masses in their millions, tapping their insatiable desire for a better world to collectively uproot the old world and build a new and better one, and to defend it from its enemies. The method and approach of the new communism enables revolutionaries to develop the strategy required to make revolution and to move to building a whole new society free from oppression and exploitation and aiming for and working toward the emancipation of all humanity—and it enables them to do it in a way that increasingly involves masses of people.

And revolutionary change requires doing this as part of a worldwide struggle to overthrow capitalism-imperialism and forge socialist societies. And to lead people who are fighting for this in any one country to contribute all they can to people everywhere, including by opposing reactionary interventions by “their own” governments against revolutionary forces and new socialist governments that are established.

This is why we say, without hype, and with the soberest understanding of all the difficulties and sacrifices this road entails, that humanity needs revolution guided by the new communism.

In coming articles, we will show how the whole history of Haiti points to the reality that this kind of deepgoing revolution, and nothing less, nothing else, provides the only solution to the nightmare world imperialism has shaped and that its supporters want to condemn us to for eternity.