People of the Revolution and the USSR

Independent activity National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1857–1927 ○ Natural death

Founding leader of the Wafd whose deportation to Malta in 1919 set off the Egyptian Revolution

Born in a village in the Nile Delta, he studied at al-Azhar and at a law school in Cairo and became a lawyer. Under the British occupation he served as a judge, minister of education (1906–1908) and minister of justice (1910–1912), and in 1913 became vice-president of the Legislative Assembly. In November 1918 he led the Wafd in demanding the end of the protectorate and a seat at the peace negotiations. When the British deported him to Malta in March 1919, the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 broke out. Exiled again to the Seychelles, he was allowed to return in 1923. After the Wafd’s landslide in the 1924 elections he formed the first Wafdist government, but resigned in November after the assassination of Sir Lee Stack, Governor-General of the Sudan, and the British demands that followed. He died in Cairo in 1927.

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1873–1935 ○ Died of illness

Pioneer of Korean communism who fused the Bolshevik revolution with national liberation against Japanese rule

On his deathbed he declared: 'I die without seeing the Korean revolution succeed. Comrades, you must establish a Korean Soviet Republic.'

A pioneer of Korean communism who transformed from a Korean Empire army officer into a socialist revolutionary, becoming the first to fuse Marxism with the Korean national liberation struggle. He founded the Korean Socialist Party in 1918, served as prime minister of the Korean Provisional Government where he championed armed resistance, and after breaking with Syngman Rhee led the Korean Communist Party (Shanghai faction) in pursuit of combining national liberation with class revolution.

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1880–1921 ✕ Froze to death while fleeing

Iranian revolutionary who led the Jungle movement of Gilan and proclaimed the Soviet Republic of Gilan in 1920

Born in Rasht in 1880, the son of a Gilani merchant, he joined the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and in 1909 was a junior commander of the constitutionalist force that took Tehran. In 1914–1915 he launched the Jungle movement in the forests of Gilan, demanding provincial autonomy, an end to central government corruption and foreign interference, and land reform. When a Soviet flotilla entered Enzeli in 1920 he agreed to cooperate on condition of non-interference, proclaimed the Soviet Republic of Gilan on 5 June and became its head, but split with the communists over his refusal to redistribute land. He returned as head of government in May 1921, but after the Soviets withdrew their support he was defeated by Reza Khan’s government troops and died of frostbite while fleeing into the Talesh mountains. His severed head was displayed in Rasht.

Democratic Party of Korea National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1883–1950 Death date and circumstances unconfirmed

Kodang Cho Man-sik, the Korean Democratic Party leader removed from the northern political stage in 1946

On 30 December 1945 Cho's party adopted its anti-trusteeship resolution despite pressure from the Soviet military command, and on 5 January 1946 the command confined him to the Koryo Hotel. From this point nationalists disappeared from the northern political stage and the left took the lead.

Cho Man-sik (1883-1950), pen name Kodang, was born in Kangso, South Pyongan Province, and worked as an educator, Presbyterian elder, journalist and politician. He graduated from Meiji University in 1913, taught at Osan School and became its headmaster in 1915, and later headed the Pyongyang YMCA, the Korean Product Promotion Society and the Chosun Ilbo. He pursued anti-Japanese activity on Gandhi's nonviolent line. After liberation he chaired the South Pyongan Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence and then the South Pyongan People's Political Committee, a left-right coalition that also included the South Pyongan Communist Party. He founded the Korean Democratic Party on 3 November 1945, and on 5 January 1946 the Soviet military command confined him to the Koryo Hotel. No confirmed reports of him remain and his death is reported rather than established.

Kuomintang National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1886–1947 ✕ Assassinated

He met Lenin and Sun Yat-sen, then staked everything on left-right unity: the last Korean unificationist before partition

“A revolutionary does not die in bed. I will die in the street.” He said this to his children after surviving multiple assassination attempts. On 19 July 1947, at the Hyehwa-dong rotary, a bullet from the White Shirts Society found him.

In 1918 he founded the New Korean Youth League and sparked the March First Movement through the February 8 Declaration of Independence. He co-founded the Korean Provisional Government, met Lenin and Trotsky in Moscow (1922), and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party at Sun Yat-sen's invitation. In August 1945 he secured peaceful transfer of authority from Japan's governor-general, formed the Committee for Preparation of Korean Independence, and became vice-chair of the People's Republic of Korea. In 1946–47 he led the left-right cooperation movement with Kim Kyu-sik, the last serious attempt at a unified Korea, before being assassinated by a right-wing terrorist. He is officially honored by both South and North Korea.

India state institutions National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1889–1964 ○ Heart attack

India's first prime minister and co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement

'Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge… At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.' (Independence eve address, 14 August 1947)

A towering leader of the Indian independence movement, he became independent India's first prime minister in 1947 and held the office until his death in 1964. He anchored the new republic in parliamentary democracy, secularism, and planned economic development, while charting a foreign policy of non-alignment that refused subordination to either Cold War bloc. With Tito he issued the 1954 joint statement that first defined 'non-alignment' as a positive, active policy, not passive neutrality, and went on to co-found the Non-Aligned Movement through the 1956 Brioni Declaration and the 1961 Belgrade summit. The Sino-Indian War of 1962 shook his domestic standing, yet he is remembered as the architect of the Indian republic.

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1893–1932 ✕ Executed

Father of Central American communism, Sandino's colonel, martyr of La Matanza

As US planes bombed Sandino's camp, Martí pushed aside his typewriter and declared: "When history cannot be written by the pen, it must be written by the rifle." He then picked up a gun and fired at the planes.

Salvadoran Marxist-Leninist revolutionary and pioneer of Central American communism. In 1930 he co-founded the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCS) and in 1932 led a peasant-indigenous uprising amid the Depression; the Martínez military regime crushed it in the La Matanza massacre and had him executed by firing squad. His name was later adopted by the FMLN guerrilla coalition, making him an enduring symbol of Central American revolution.

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1895–1934 ✕ Assassinated

Pan-Latin American anti-imperialist hero who waged guerrilla war against US occupation of Nicaragua

“Let it not be permitted that the hands of traitors or invaders shall profane his remains.” — Sandino, 1927

Nicaraguan revolutionary and guerrilla leader. From 1927 to 1933, he led the Army in Defense of National Sovereignty (EDSN) against the US military occupation, becoming a symbol of anti-imperialist resistance throughout Latin America. Assassinated in 1934 by the US-trained National Guard under Anastasio Somoza, his legacy inspired the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), founded in 1961, which overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979.

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1909–1972 ○ Illness

Architect of Pan-African Marxism who led sub-Saharan Africa's first independence

“We must unite now or perish.” — address to the Conference of African Heads of State, Addis Ababa, 1963

Ghana's independence leader, first prime minister and president. He secured sub-Saharan Africa's first independence in 1957. Through Nkrumaism, synthesizing scientific socialism with African tradition, he forged the intellectual foundation of the pan-African liberation movement.

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1910–1994 ○ Natural death

Southern nationalist who joined the revolutionary front, then walked out over fraudulent elections

Denouncing the rigged vote, he declared "the Malagasy people had not elected Ratsiraka for the next seven years."

A Malagasy nationalist politician from the Antandroy people of the south. After organizing the secret Jiny society and surviving imprisonment for his role in the 1947 uprising, he founded MONIMA in 1958 to champion Madagascar's poor southern peasants against Tsiranana's pro-French regime, leading the 1971-72 rotaka protests that drove him from power. Joining Ratsiraka's revolutionary front, he later denounced the 1977 elections as fraudulent and withdrew, becoming the Second Republic's foremost opposition leader.