wrong.
After the victory of the Cuban revolution, the colonial revolution unquestionably marked time.
In fact, starting early in the sixties the colonial revolution suffered a series of spectacular reverses. The rise to power of military dictatorships and the momentary deeline of the mass movements in Brazil and Argentina (the two principal countries of Latin America); the overthrow of the Lumumba regime in the Congo, the Nkrumah regime In Ghana and the Ben Bella regime In Algeria; the victory of the Indonesian counterrevolution in October 1965; and the military defeat of the United Arab Republic and Syria in the six day war of June 1967 constitute the main milestones in each of the epicenters of the colonial revolution, The colonial revolution had reached the point where it could go no further unless it made the transition into a socialiet revolution — and for that the subjective factorwas Jacking. On the other hand, American imperialism, drawing its own conclusions from the victory of the Cuban revolution, shifed more and more openly to repressing by military force all revolutionary movements which in imperialists could finance these projects for five or six years which from "military missions" and "counterinsurgency in Latin America to the war in Vietnam, in luding the upkeep and expansion of dozens of air naval bases throughout the world, cost tens of billions of dol lars — without opening up an assault on the living standard of the workers in the United States, The might, expansion. and arrogance of Yankee Imperialism seemed to reach new heights after its failure in the fifties..
The Vletnam war also was the culmination and, as it were, the crest of this Imperialist counteroffensive. The Vietnam war became the turning point in the situation. As a result of the indomitable resistance of the Vietnamese masses, the colonial revolution was able to regroup Its forces and stage a comeback in several important sectors.
In the last analysis, the tallure of the imperialist coun teroffensive is an expression of the fact that the global balance of forces is already too unfavorable to imperialism for i to be able to reverse the trend on its peri phery. There is no question that the international situation could have developed in a way much more favorable to the revolution if there had been an international revolu tionary leadership able to marshal all the anti-imperialiet ond anticapitalist forces in a united front pursuing & global stratesy counterposed to the ainbal cuunterrevolutionary stralegy of imperialism. Hut even in the absence of an effective world revolutionary leadership, im perialiem was unable to reverse the balance of forces. Once the most oppressed and explolted classes, or at least their most alert seclors, began lo become consclous on an international scale of the crucial fact that in today's world the herole fighters of a little country like Vietnam can stall the war machine of the greatest Imperialist power in his tory, a new and grave deterioration In the imperlalist position began to develop.
Fiest of all, the contradictions and difficulties faced by imperialism have mounted on numerous fronts. The revival of the colonial revolution in Southeast Asia has been spurred. Interimperialist contradictions have been ac centuaied. Secondly, the defeat which imperialism has suf tered on its periphery has greatly contributed to reviving the revolutionary crisis in the very heart of the imperialist system, including in the United States itself.
The links between the victorious resstance of the Viet namese revolution and the revival of revolutionary strug gle in the central imperialist countries are obvious, both on the subjective and objective levels.
On the subjective level this resistance impelled the for mation of a new youth vanguard in the imperialiel coun tries, strongly contributed to making it independent of the traditional reformist and Stalinist apparatuses, and helped it to gain experience and assume increasing boldness in its ceaselessly escalating clashes with the traditional parties, with the bourgeoisie, and with the repressive apparatus of the bourgeois state.
On the objective level, the economic and financial consequences of the Vietnam war have aggravated the dollar crisis, increased the tensions in the internarional mone tary system, and sharpened the interimperialist contradictions, thus draining the reserves with which the international bourgeoisie could have cushioned the effects of the 1966