(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #247 - 1935: The march
of hunger in Martinique (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
February 11, 1935, at dawn, over a thousand farm workers and workers in work clothes, to
the surprise invade the streets of Fort-De-France and settled quietly in front of the
governor's palace . They demand the cancellation of a decline in wages, already the
poorest of Martinique, and the release of one of their representatives, arrested the day
before. This movement surprises the capital will succeed in reducing the "békés" that
control sugarcane economy for decades and claim that they are on the verge of bankruptcy.
---- If telegrams sent to Paris by the owners of sugar factories speak of "riots" and
"armed gangs" of "looting" and "deficiencies of the governor," while the presence in town
of cane cutters and cutters Yet remained peaceful, it's more that this invasion of hordes
of "bitacots" and "niggers barefoot" in the city wakes up in white racist fantasies at the
same time the abolition of slavery: fear of revenge of the destitute, equated with
anti-white pogrom resurfaces every social crisis in Martinique.
It must be said that cutting the sugar cane is probably the worst trade of the colony, the
most poorly paid, the one nobody wants to do. Paid 10 francs a day, only at harvest time
(6-7 months), working men and women are reduced to typically buy their food on credit.
Learning to read is often enough to ensure access to a lazy sacks as factory worker. At
the surrounding poverty, adds the image of alcoholic workers who consume a third of their
rum salary. At the approach of the strikers, shutters Fort-De-France are closed and the
streets empty.
Long live the crisis
The sugar economy is then the first activity of the island: it uses more than 50% of the
agricultural area for growing canes, which are transformed in fifteen sweets, all
belonging to békés [ 1 ] and 200 distilleries .
Sugar and rum exports represent 90% of the colony (mostly to the mainland) and sustains
the 2/3 of the population (farmers, agricultural laborers or factory workers ...). But
since the First World War, we speak mostly of "crisis" of sugar, and the drop in prices
following the 1929 crisis only reinforces this atmosphere of crisis. Thus the new drop in
world sugar prices in 1934, justified, according békés, lower wages, announced in
December, 8 francs a day.
The first wage cuts implemented at the beginning of the sugar season, in January 1935,
elicit different reactions: the south, the workers who then try to organize call for labor
inspection and administration. In the north, several plantations fires are reported. It is
not by chance that the pessimistic discourse of the békés no longer passes.
In 1933, a scandal revealed that plants Salt River and Soudon had falsified their accounts
to remove over 10% of production, and thus the profits that go with it. Eugene Aubéry,
owner of the factory of Lareinty, is he accused of corrupt justice to turn a profit of 10
million in deficit and embezzling 8,000,000 for the taxman. Difficult to imagine békés the
edge of bankruptcy with such sums.
As if that were not enough, Aubéry is accused of kidnap and murder in January 1934 the
Communist journalist André Aliker, who had accused the Justice Journal, published by the
group Jean Jaurès, one of the two communist organization Island [ 2 ]. Aliker was to
accuse him of the murder of the socialist councilors Zizine and Des Floors in 1925. And to
top it all, the trial of Aubéry corruption, held in Nantes from 19 to 21 December 1934
results a pretty outrageous but predictable acquittal as the Advocate General seemed
favorable ... The fact qu'Aubéry was justice minister between October and November 1934
may also explain this indulgence.
The marching strikes
Quite reluctant to trust their bosses, groups of laborers are formed to tour the "houses"
(sugar cane farms) and spread the strike. This practice of walking strike is often equated
by the press to a wave of armed groups (since the strikers take their work cutlass) that
prevent the work by threats or violence. The governor Mathieu Alfassa, fresh off the
island, call a Labour Advisory Committee January 16 hoping to find an agreement. After 6
hours of debate, no decision is taken, the representatives of workers' consider this a
victory: no decline in wages is black cohosh. But subject to békés pressures, the governor
decreed January 21 lower wages of 20% and a decrease of the retail price of rum 20%
probably considering that it's enough to lower the cost of living of the workers.
Once this announcement, the Socialist Party convenes in St. Mary, the stronghold of the MP
and party founder Joseph Lagrosillière, a general meeting of agricultural workers. The
next day the Cablo newspaper that published the ad, publishes a disclaimer: no meeting
will be held. Meanwhile, the director of the local mill, Raymond Hughes Despointes had
intervened to get this denial, showing the grip békés on the press, including the
socialist press.
Deprived of this support and advanced enough union building, workers and agricultural
workers resumed on 26 January the marching strikes and sometimes fields fires. On February
8, the Petit-Bourg Factory is occupied by one of the columns of strikers, of which
Irenaeus Surena, foreman of the factory and workers' representative at the Consultative
Committee on 16 January.
Claiming a hardware case (actually damaged gauges), the békés ask the arrest of "leader"
Surena. But it is very popular. Ancinel The Commissioner is obliged to use tricks to stop:
Sunday, February 10 evening, he invites her to a negotiation to take place at the
prosecutor and intends to take him there. But it is in the Fort prison in France he finds
himself. The news spread in the night, and keeping in mind the assassination a year ago of
André Aliker, agricultural workers and workers want to act before it is too late.
Panic in Fort de France
During the night of February 10 to 11 small groups of workers meet secretly in boxes whose
accesses are kept and then travel the countryside to prepare a "down town" the next day.
Neither the police nor political, nor communist activists Common Front which nevertheless
support the strikers are not aware of the operation. On Monday morning, they are more than
a thousand before the palace of the governor.
A delegation was received by Alfassa, which enrages the bosses that await an appointment
the day before. When the bosses are finally received in late morning, the Governor
proposes to abandon their declining wages ... they refuse. Leaving the palace, bosses also
refuse to engage with the strikers and Eugene Aubéry is particularly booed. The Ancinel
Commissioner proposes to open his way through the crowd with great blows of the whip ...
generating some responses.
The bosses took refuge in White Circle, a nearby hotel and barricade themselves. But when
the police are involved, it saw a few dozen strikers in front of the circle, which clearly
does not intend to enter. Looting, assault and violence told by the newspapers in the
following weeks are only inventions békés panic. No newspaper also managed to include a
trade that has actually been looted. Actual violence are those of the police, who charge
the few strikers present before the Circle of white and harassing them before the
governor's palace through the middle of the crowd in the car, driving at high speed, and
distributing butts.
This is the socialist mayor, Victor Severus, who comes to call the strikers quiet, as they
prepare to fight back and to return the gendarmes in their barracks. The Governor Alfassa
eventually take to the streets and to announce that further negotiations would take place.
Satisfied with this first victory, and the impression produced in the city, the strikers
gathered at City Hall, adjacent to the prison, and demand release of Irenaeus Surena.
Their attempts to walk on the prison are repelled by the mounted police and Ancinel
Commissioner. The Commissioner is quickly attacked and flees. Renowned for its racist and
violent attitude, he sees the doors close in front of him when he tries to take refuge
somewhere.
At dusk, when the voltage rises, the governor did finally release Surena. Not content with
having obtained further negotiations and the release of their comrade, strikers demand to
be escorted back to their villages by truck. Victor Severe hastens their rent vehicles, to
finally get rid of that crowd that he is no longer able to control.
New deception
Satisfied with their victory, agricultural workers and workers leaving it to
representatives to negotiate a new agreement the next day: the socialist and communist
activist elected. On the evening of February 12, a compromise was found: the return to the
1934 salaries, but only for those who work 5 days! Below 5 days, the daily wage is reduced
from day 15%. From the 6th day working week, a premium of 3F is granted. In addition the
agreement foresee a drastic cut control rods (number, length ...). The decline in the
price of rum is canceled.
The next day, the marching strikes resumed and tensions rise. Managers and owners are
driven from their factories. The police fail to stop these multiple columns of strikers
who travel the country and often do not even attempt to try. Signs that the governor was
affixed on February 14 to inform the public of the text of the agreement are immediately torn.
Finally, the recovery work is done quietly in each plant that accepts a simple return to
the salary of 1934, without mentioning the terms of the agreement. All békés will soon
accept this defeat. But the atmosphere has changed the working men and women benefit from
the balance of forces to oppose the strict control of the cane they deliver. Strikes are
completed on February 19 ... except where Lareinty Aubéry still persists until March 2 to
want to apply to the letter the agreement of 12.
Memorable victory
Meanwhile, on 18 February the workers building roads went on strike against lower wages
10% that had been imposed on them in January, but against which they had not dared to
rebel. Hunting leaders waged gendarmerie, completely inefficient, completes ridicule
forces. On 22 February they get satisfaction, but it is then the dockers who take the
movement to get a raise. The Governor Alfassa used on any military reinforcements he had
asked to replace strikers, putting a quick end to the movement.
Farm workers have managed to impose a first major setback to békés, which will keep this
affront in the craw long time and many blame the governor of failing to shoot the
strikers. A pressure force on the ministry of the colonies, the governor will be recalled
to Paris a few weeks later. The impression it leaves in the black population is
diametrically opposed: while he is in charge of the decree of 21 January and the agreement
of February 12, rejected by the strikers, it is nevertheless regarded as a governor who
was their favorable and opposed to arbitrary békés.
But above all, this victory is the result of a struggle the most destitute people and the
worst seen on the island, with the support of a handful of communist militants, and the
few elected socialists, who always placed as intermediaries with the power ... often being
disowned
Leo P (AL Alsace)
For more information: Edouard De Lepine, the crisis of February 1935 in Martinique,
L'Harmattan, 1980.
[ 1 ] The Békés are white Martinique, often descendants of the first settlers, who control
almost all of the economy.
[ 2 ] The other organization is the Common Front Group, which merged with the group to
create a Jean Jaurès Martinique communist federation in 1936.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?En-1935-La-marche-de-la-faim-en
