United Party of Haitian Communists

(UPHC; Parti Unifié des Communistes Haïtiens), a party created in 1968 as a result of the merger of the Haitian National Unity Party, which had been founded in 1959, and the Union of Haitian Democrats Party, which had been founded in 1954 and which prior to 1965 was called the People’s National Liberation Party.

The declaration concerning the merger of the two parties contained the following statement: “The UPHC is the conscious and organized vanguard of the working class, fighting under the banner of Marxist-Lenininst ideology. The path of the Haitian revolution, as it is set forth in the documents of the UPHC, is the path of the armed struggle that is to be waged in response to the violence of the reaction.” From the moment of its creation the UPHC has been active only underground. The Communists have done a great deal in the countryside to organize the peasants—who constitute 85 percent of the population—struggling to improve their economic status and effect agrarian reform.

In 1969 the dictatorial Duvalier government directed harsh repressions against the party. A number of municipal and regional party organizations were crushed and hundreds of Communists were thrown into prison and killed. Among those who perished were Gérald Brisson and Reymond Jean François, secretaries of the Central Committee of the UPHC, and Jacques Jeannot and Adrien Sansarique, members of the capital committee. As a result of these repressions operating conditions became considerably more complicated for the Haitian Communists, but despite all difficulties the Communists restored their illegal party bodies and mass organizations. In June 1971 the party leadership set forth a program of united action by all progressive forces fighting against the dictatorial regime in Haiti.

A delegation of the UPHC took part in the work of the International Conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow in 1969; at the 1960 International Conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties the Haitian National Unity Party had been represented. The UPHC approved the documents that were adopted at the conferences.