And a happy autumn solstice. I absolutely love this time of year! After weeks of overbooking myself, I finally had a day of walking around in the sun by myself, observing street musicians and dancers and families, checking out bookstores and reading on the couch.
Book- I finished Black Jacobins. My class still has 2 more weeks of reading James, but I’ll be missing this upcoming week. The first half of the book charts the beginnings of rebellion and Toussaint’s rise to power while the second half charts Toussaint’s downfall and the war for independence in its many forms, ending with the massacre of whites and establishment of Haiti. Toussaint, for all his exceptionalism— he was said to only sleep a few hours a night and be fine on 2 bananas a day—trusted the French. He trusted Napoleon! The familiarity with European politics which made him a successful negotiator ultimately spelled his downfall. He lost touch with the masses and lost their trust by aiming to maintain ties with the French and the powerful whites on the island. My professor argues that James is trying to make a point about the Soviet Union here. But Toussaint didn’t want French involvement out of some psychic bonds to his enslaver or internalized white supremacy. He simply could not see a prosperous future for a mainly agrarian island which had lost laborers over the course of a decade of war without some of the knowledge and material advantages of France. The Soviet Union, China, Cuba— all were non-industrialized societies on the periphery of the imperial core which did not go through the theorized transition from industrial capitalism to socialism. Haiti and the American South during Reconstruction were freed societies looking to live free and prosper. James asks what Lenin asked- what is to be done? What compromises have to be made for a free society to stay free?
“Always, but particularly at the moment of struggle, a leader must think of his own masses. It is what they think that matters, not what the imperialists think. And if to make matters clear to them Toussaint had to condone a massacre of the whites, so much the worse for the whites. He had done everything possible for them, and if the race question occupied the place that it did in San Domingo, it was not the fault of the blacks. But Toussaint, like Robespierre, destroyed his own Left-wing, and with it sealed his own doom. The tragedy was that there was no need for it. Robespierre struck at the masses because he was bourgeois and they were communist. That clash was inevitable, and regrets over it are vain. But between Toussaint and his people there was no fundamental difference of outlook or of aim. Knowing the race question for the political and social question that it was, he tried to deal with it in a purely political and social way. It was a grave error. Lenin in his thesis to the Second Congress of the Communist International warned the white revolutionaries--a warning they badly need--that such has been the effect of the policy of imperialism on the relationship between advanced and backward peoples that European Communists will have to make wide concessions to natives of colonial countries in order to overcome the justified prejudice which these feel toward all classes in the oppressing countries. Toussaint, as his power grew, forgot that. He ignored the black labourers, bewildered them at the very moment that he needed them most, and to bewilder the masses is to strike the deadliest of all blows at the revolution.”
Toussaint’s successor as the leader of San Domingo, Dessalines, rose the masses, won independence, and slaughtered the whites on the island. Of the slaughter, James says:
"The massacre of the whites was a tragedy; not for the whites. For these old slave- owners, those who burnt a little powder in the arse of a Negro, who buried him alive for insects to eat, who were well treated by Toussaint, and who, as soon as they got the chance, began their old cruelties again; for these there is no need to waste one tear or one drop of ink. The tragedy was for the blacks and the Mulattoes. It was not policy but revenge, and revenge has no place in politics. The whites were no longer to be feared, and such purposeless massacres degrade and brutalise a population, especially one which was just beginning as a nation and had had so bitter a past. The people did not want it--all they wanted was freedom, and independence seemed to promise that. Christophe and other generals strongly disapproved. Had the British and the Americans thrown their weight on the side of humanity, Dessalines might have been curbed. As it was Haiti suffered terribly from the resulting isolation. Whites were banished from Haiti for generations, and the unfortunate country, ruined economically, its population lacking in social culture, had its inevitable difficulties doubled by this massacre. That the new nation survived at all is forever to its credit for if the Haitians thought that imperialism was finished with them, they were mistaken."
James ends with a Pan-Africanist call to international solidarity. In this, the book is a great companion to Black Marxism and adroitly makes the point that socialism can only survive through internationalism.
Short story- “The Feminist” by Tony Tulathimutte. Tulathimutte is the only author who can reliably make me shriek aloud with cringe in complete solitude. I will be reading his short story book Rejection when it comes out next week.
Substacks- ps can anyone tell me how to turn off the notes function? I don’t have a twitter for a reason.
NYPD: Mass Shooters: It’s time for another reckoning with police by Joshua P. Hill. I was deeply disturbed to hear about the NYPD shooting up a subway station over farebeating. I’m sure you were too.
Grace’s review of Intermezzo on Language Arts. I felt greatly let down by BWWAY and am feeling cautiously optimistic about Intermezzo. Can’t wait to start it.
Grief is a Skill on Mental Hellth
home language, world language by Meghna Rao, beautiful piece as always
Music- Orion Sun’s new album is out!!!! It’s more melancholy than her previous work, a fair number of breakup songs. This interview with her is really endearing.
If you’re in town next weekend and want to come to my birthday capture the flag game lmk!
<3 ALF