Many of us are for witnessing a revolution for the first time and learning firsthand what the dynamics of a revolution entail. And we are learning that a revolution is not a singular moment of upheaval. Instead, it is a series of crises and confrontations...

... as well as a slate of negotiations and backroom navigations. Indeed, while the masses put their bodies on the line and deal with repression head on, the elites are working behind the scenes. But for what?

For reform, sometimes for "structural change," but often, often most times, for their own increased share of power. They want the state, the masses be damned.

This is one of the lessons of James' The Black Jacobins and of Victor Serge's Memoir of a Revolutionary. But the other lesson is this: even the "progressive" or "radical" elites showed themselves to be counterrevolutionaries in the end.

And in the end, Dessalines was proven right.

Then again, we might also ask: are we witnessing an actual "revolution"?