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.

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.