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Revolution in the Third World
English, French (translation)
- GenresSocial Science
195 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Gérard Chaliand
156 books27 followersGérard Chaliand is a French expert in geopolitics who has published widely on irregular warfare and military strategy.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 19, 2026
Gérard Chaliand worked in Algiers 1963-1964 as editor for the weekly Revolution Africaine. The original title, Mythes révolutionnaires du tiers monde is his PhD dissertation at Sorbonne University in 1975.
"[...] the Algerian "revolution," geographically so close to Europe, came to symbolize the anticolonialist struggle. The works of Frantz Fanon, in particular his The Wretched of the Earth, inspired this anti-colonialist trend of thought in Europe, and before long it could be found in the United States too, especially among blacks, where it merged with opposition to the war in Vietnam. Third World euphoria was an important characteristic of the 1960s, both in the Third World itself and in the West, especially among students and youth. It developed in the context set by "decolonization," whether by decree or by force; by the emergence of armed revolutionary movements in Asia, Latin America, and Africa; by a controversy between Russia and China, hinging, in the official texts, on problems of revolutionary strategy; and finally, by the rather dreary state of politics in most of the advanced industrial countries of the West." (Chaliand, Preface, page xv)
What is characteristic for the sixties, a need for revolutionary unity, stands unfulfilled by the seventies. Optimistic expectations
"The term Third World envelops in a semblance of unity what is in reality a multiplicity of worlds." (Chaliand, Preface, page xvi)
"True, all of them face the same problem: how to achieve real independence based on autonomous development. This is why it has been possible to call the overall situation revolutionary." (xvi)
Revolution comes from crisis
"[...] it is in fact unusual for the social contradictions within a formally independent country to become so acute as to set off a deep nationwide crisis. This occurs only when the grip of a foreign power is added to the crushing weight of a corrupt upper class unable to promote even lopsided growth. This offends everyone, and most of all the modernist petty bourgeoisie (civilian or military) whose access to what it considers its rightful functions is blocked. That is why most of the "revolutions" in the Third World during the past thirty years [1945-1975] have been undertaken by the relatively small class of nationalist petty bourgeoisie who are eager to promote development. The classic example of this phenomenon was Egypt." (xvii).
"The revolutions in Asia, Latin America, and Africa have been thought up and led by intellectuals, who mostly came from the petty bourgeoisie. Only a few of them have been far-reaching. These revolutions have sought to overthrow established powers when the latter proved incapable of coming up with any response to the crises wracking their societies. In places where the ruling classes were unable or unwilling to adapt fast enough, the dissatisfaction of the petty bourgeoisie has joined with the humiliation felt by intellectuals; centuries of accumulated contradictions in rural society have come to a head when further distorted by the introduction of capitalism and aggravated by population pressures; and all this has combined to produce revolutionary explosions." (xvii)
"these revolutionary explosions, often restricted to "the top," have resulted only in nationalist regimes with statist tendencies, not in thoroughgoing revolutions affecting the social structure." (xvii)
Not discounting, however, prior condition: "perhaps because the modernist elites are weak or lack real links with the peasant masses, or because the industrial capitalist countries have intervened, directly or indirectly, anxious to preserve their hegemony." (xvii)
Example of Algeria as anti-colonial revolution
Socialist Revolution, reality and myth
" (Chaliand, Preface, page xiii)
Wallerstein:
Of Chaliand, "When he first wrote, he contributed to the myth of Third Worldism, he says, but now he repetns and wishes to challenge the "myth of socialist state."" (xviii)
Myths are essential to organizing a movement.
"the major function myths play is to mobilize people, by their promise and their optimism. Crushed by the realities of routine, we all hesitate to engage ourselves in political struggle. We fear energy wasted. We fear repression. We fear cutting ourselves off from family and friends. One of the most basic mechanisms that sustains the status quo is always precisely this pervasive fear of the oppressed to break with routine. A revolutionary movement is precisely a movement that calls for a break with routine, that demands sacrifice in the present for a better world in the future. And because the sacrifice is real and immediate, while the better world is in the distance and uncertain, it is always difficult to organize. Myths are an essential element in the organizing process, and in sustaining the troops during the long political battle." (Immanuel Wallerstein, Foreword, page x)
"Conclusion number one is that a nationalist revolution that does not put its major stress on being simultaneously a social revolution is unlikely to yield results that will significantly improve the lot of the people. That is to say, there are nationalisms and nationalisms, there better and worse, there are those which have politically and socially progressive outcomes, and others which are, if not retrogressive, at most reproductions of the same level of human oppression.
(Wallerstein, Foreword, xi)
Chapter 6: The Theory and Practice of Marxism-Leninism
Bolsheviks expected a bourgeois democratic revolution, but considered the Russian bourgeoisie to weak (148).
Leninism establishes state capitalism as the first step to socialism.
The new type of state capitalism (149)
The October Revolution established workers' control and the land reform program prior to the new state and army, which "meant the de facto suppression of the workers' democracy that had developed in the early months." (Chaliand, 149)
Immediate economic consequences include shortages, and "the growing discontent of the peasants," who were paid in devalued Rubles (149).
The Civil War cost nearly half the populations of Petrograd and Moscow (150).
The Soviets turn into transmission belts for orders from the party (150).
On the Party (150)
NEP (151) and the priority of economic development
Worker power vanishes early (150).
Stalin's Socialism in One Country by pushing exploitation (152).
The socialist state in the transition from capitalism to socialism (153).
The undue "confidence" of Marxists (154).
Loss of momentum and the summary of Marxism-Leninism as a code (156)
Stalin's version of socialism (157)
The state controls, rather than the workers (158)
The anti-bureaucratic appeal of the Chinese example of Mao's 1957 rectification campaign, and the Cultural Revolution in 1966 (162)
Cuba's bureaucracy (163).
China's policy in Indonesia and the Lin Piao Line (164)
"[...] the Algerian "revolution," geographically so close to Europe, came to symbolize the anticolonialist struggle. The works of Frantz Fanon, in particular his The Wretched of the Earth, inspired this anti-colonialist trend of thought in Europe, and before long it could be found in the United States too, especially among blacks, where it merged with opposition to the war in Vietnam. Third World euphoria was an important characteristic of the 1960s, both in the Third World itself and in the West, especially among students and youth. It developed in the context set by "decolonization," whether by decree or by force; by the emergence of armed revolutionary movements in Asia, Latin America, and Africa; by a controversy between Russia and China, hinging, in the official texts, on problems of revolutionary strategy; and finally, by the rather dreary state of politics in most of the advanced industrial countries of the West." (Chaliand, Preface, page xv)
What is characteristic for the sixties, a need for revolutionary unity, stands unfulfilled by the seventies. Optimistic expectations
"The term Third World envelops in a semblance of unity what is in reality a multiplicity of worlds." (Chaliand, Preface, page xvi)
"True, all of them face the same problem: how to achieve real independence based on autonomous development. This is why it has been possible to call the overall situation revolutionary." (xvi)
Revolution comes from crisis
"[...] it is in fact unusual for the social contradictions within a formally independent country to become so acute as to set off a deep nationwide crisis. This occurs only when the grip of a foreign power is added to the crushing weight of a corrupt upper class unable to promote even lopsided growth. This offends everyone, and most of all the modernist petty bourgeoisie (civilian or military) whose access to what it considers its rightful functions is blocked. That is why most of the "revolutions" in the Third World during the past thirty years [1945-1975] have been undertaken by the relatively small class of nationalist petty bourgeoisie who are eager to promote development. The classic example of this phenomenon was Egypt." (xvii).
"The revolutions in Asia, Latin America, and Africa have been thought up and led by intellectuals, who mostly came from the petty bourgeoisie. Only a few of them have been far-reaching. These revolutions have sought to overthrow established powers when the latter proved incapable of coming up with any response to the crises wracking their societies. In places where the ruling classes were unable or unwilling to adapt fast enough, the dissatisfaction of the petty bourgeoisie has joined with the humiliation felt by intellectuals; centuries of accumulated contradictions in rural society have come to a head when further distorted by the introduction of capitalism and aggravated by population pressures; and all this has combined to produce revolutionary explosions." (xvii)
"these revolutionary explosions, often restricted to "the top," have resulted only in nationalist regimes with statist tendencies, not in thoroughgoing revolutions affecting the social structure." (xvii)
Not discounting, however, prior condition: "perhaps because the modernist elites are weak or lack real links with the peasant masses, or because the industrial capitalist countries have intervened, directly or indirectly, anxious to preserve their hegemony." (xvii)
Example of Algeria as anti-colonial revolution
Socialist Revolution, reality and myth
" (Chaliand, Preface, page xiii)
Wallerstein:
Of Chaliand, "When he first wrote, he contributed to the myth of Third Worldism, he says, but now he repetns and wishes to challenge the "myth of socialist state."" (xviii)
Myths are essential to organizing a movement.
"the major function myths play is to mobilize people, by their promise and their optimism. Crushed by the realities of routine, we all hesitate to engage ourselves in political struggle. We fear energy wasted. We fear repression. We fear cutting ourselves off from family and friends. One of the most basic mechanisms that sustains the status quo is always precisely this pervasive fear of the oppressed to break with routine. A revolutionary movement is precisely a movement that calls for a break with routine, that demands sacrifice in the present for a better world in the future. And because the sacrifice is real and immediate, while the better world is in the distance and uncertain, it is always difficult to organize. Myths are an essential element in the organizing process, and in sustaining the troops during the long political battle." (Immanuel Wallerstein, Foreword, page x)
"Conclusion number one is that a nationalist revolution that does not put its major stress on being simultaneously a social revolution is unlikely to yield results that will significantly improve the lot of the people. That is to say, there are nationalisms and nationalisms, there better and worse, there are those which have politically and socially progressive outcomes, and others which are, if not retrogressive, at most reproductions of the same level of human oppression.
(Wallerstein, Foreword, xi)
Chapter 6: The Theory and Practice of Marxism-Leninism
Bolsheviks expected a bourgeois democratic revolution, but considered the Russian bourgeoisie to weak (148).
Leninism establishes state capitalism as the first step to socialism.
The new type of state capitalism (149)
The October Revolution established workers' control and the land reform program prior to the new state and army, which "meant the de facto suppression of the workers' democracy that had developed in the early months." (Chaliand, 149)
Immediate economic consequences include shortages, and "the growing discontent of the peasants," who were paid in devalued Rubles (149).
The Civil War cost nearly half the populations of Petrograd and Moscow (150).
The Soviets turn into transmission belts for orders from the party (150).
On the Party (150)
NEP (151) and the priority of economic development
Worker power vanishes early (150).
Stalin's Socialism in One Country by pushing exploitation (152).
The socialist state in the transition from capitalism to socialism (153).
The undue "confidence" of Marxists (154).
Loss of momentum and the summary of Marxism-Leninism as a code (156)
Stalin's version of socialism (157)
The state controls, rather than the workers (158)
The anti-bureaucratic appeal of the Chinese example of Mao's 1957 rectification campaign, and the Cultural Revolution in 1966 (162)
Cuba's bureaucracy (163).
China's policy in Indonesia and the Lin Piao Line (164)
September 15, 2025
Gerard Chaliand's defunct. There's a reason why he rated celebratory obituaries from Paris to New York City, and it lies in this book, which he conned me into buying back at the end of the Seventies. Chaliand, a Third World revolution groupie who hanged out with the likes of Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau and, he claimed, Che Guevara, had a road to Damascus moment in 1977, which he shared with us in REVOLUTION IN THE THIRD WORLD. "These revolutions have all failed". That's it. No analysis of the class nature of revolution in Africa and Asia (by 1978 Latin America was a spent volcano for revolutionaries), no taking stock of their leadership, though Chaliand maintained he had "always admired Cabral", no comparison to successful revolutions in Vietnam, Cuba and Angola. Apparently these did not meet up to his high standards. No wonder Gerard wound up lecturing at the BLAND corporation in Santa Monica, the U.S. Naval College, and, alas, UCLA. Welcome home, kid.
September 28, 2024
This book might serve as a jumping off point to research all the events he mentions further. There is so much history here from all over the world, and to understand what the author is saying it would be almost indispensable to have some knowledge of that history and the context surrounding the events the author talks about.
August 26, 2008
excellent analysis...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews