Revolutionary Waves of the Twentieth Century: “The Red Wave” in Asia, 1940–1970

The study examines revolutionary waves – the process of spreading protest activity from one society to another. The author reveals the specifics and analyzes the nature of relations within the “red wave” in post-war Asia in the 40s – 70s of the twentieth century. The paper explains the structural, ideological and organizational relationship
between these revolutions (uprising, partisan wars) using the world system analysis, demographic and structural theory, the theory of military revolutions, and the neo-Marxist model of B. Moore. These approaches helped to explain the authoritarian, dirigiste an egalitarian Asian “wave”, and also highlighted two ideologically and organizationally separate “waves”.

Keywords: the revolutionary “waves”, the Asian revolution, guerrilla war, decolonization, the Comintern,
Maoism, the Khmer Rouge, demographic-structural theory, neo-Marxism, world-system analysis.