The Unified Party of Haitian Communists (french: Parti unifié des communistes haitiens) was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

. PUCH was established in 1968 by the mergers the

Popular Entente Party Popularity or social status is the quality of being well liked, admired or well known to a particular group. Popular may also refer to: In sociology * Popular culture * Popular fiction * Popular music * Popular science * Populace, the tota ...

(founded in 1959) and the

Party of Union of Haitian Democrats A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

(founded in 1954 and was until 1965 called the People's Party of National Liberation). The declaration of merger of the two parties stated: "PUCH is the conscious and organized vanguard of the working class, fighting under the banner of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. The path of the Haitian revolution, as defined in the documents of PUCH - is the path of armed struggle, which must be carried out in response to the reactionary violence". PUCH was a clandestine party from its foundation. The party initiated a lot of work for

agrarian reform Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land (see land reform) or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land re ...

amongst the peasantry in the villages.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

Объединённая партия гаитянских коммунистов
/ref> In 1969 the

François Duvalier François Duvalier (; 14 April 190721 April 1971), also known as Papa Doc, was a Haitian politician of French Martiniquan descent who served as the President of Haiti from 1957 to 1971. He was elected president in the 1957 general election on ...

regime launched a crackdown on the party. Various urban and regional party organizations were dismantled. Hundreds of PUCH activists were jailed and tortured. The

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...

secretaries Gérald Brisson and Raymond Jean Francois were killed, as were the members of the

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

committee Jacques Jeannot and Adrien Sansarik. The party was however, able to rebuild illegal party organs and mass organizations. In June 1971 the party leadership put forward an action programme for unity of all progressive forces fighting against the Haitian regime. In the 1980s, the party leadership was exiled in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

.Haiti - Political Parties
/ref> The PUCH sent a delegation to the

1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties On 5–17 June 1969, an International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties was held in Moscow. The meeting occurred in the aftermath of the Sino-Soviet split and the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The preceding international meeting, ...

held in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. The party endorsed the documents adopted at the meeting.

References

{{Authority control Banned communist parties Defunct communist parties Communist parties in Haiti Defunct political parties in Haiti Political parties established in 1968