1954: Etienne Charlier published Aperçu sur la formation historique de la nation haïtienne, applying Marxist theory to the country’s past.

1954: Etienne Charlier published Aperçu sur la formation historique de la nation haïtienne, applying Marxist theory to the country’s past. He argued that the ideological superstructure of Haiti rested fundamentally upon an economic foundation in his Marxist analysis of national history. He maintained that while class conflict was primary, color factors assumed a central role in specific periods of political struggle.The text sparked a bitter intellectual controversy with Emmanuel C. Paul over the role of class and color in the Haitian Revolution.