60 years of the chinese revolution and 50 years of the cuban revolution: revolution and national liberation

Abstract

In 2009, five decades have passed since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and six decades since the Chinese Revolution. For the historian, this temporal distancing of about half a century from the triumph of these movements allows us to carry out more complete reflections.
Although these two Revolutions took place in completely different societies and on different continents. Undoubtedly, these two revolutionary processes were part of a broader revolutionary movement, marked by the resistance of the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America against Imperialism, and had as their guide and inspiration the great Russian Revolution of October 1917.
The gigantic Russian Empire at the time of the Tsars was not just a multinational state located on two continents (Europe and Asia): it was also a dual society, where “islands” of rapid industrial modernization coexisted with a vast, backward and underdeveloped agrarian interior. Surprisingly, even at the beginning of the 20th century, the fragile political stability of the Empire was guaranteed by a regime with clear absolutist characteristics.