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Politics & Power Quote by Lin Biao

"In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population"

About this Quote

Lin Biao is doing two things at once: shrinking the Cold War map and inflating China’s claim to moral leadership. By declaring that “world revolution” hinges on Asia, Africa, and Latin America, he demotes Europe and North America from history’s protagonists to history’s obstacles. The phrasing is bluntly arithmetic - “overwhelming majority” as a kind of revolutionary proof - suggesting that legitimacy comes from demographics, not from institutions, elections, or industrial output. It’s an argument designed to feel inevitable.

The context matters. In the 1960s, anti-colonial wars and insurgencies were erupting across the “Third World,” and Beijing was competing with Moscow to define what authentic revolution looked like. Lin, Mao’s defense minister and heir apparent for a time, channels a Maoist line: the global countryside will encircle the global city. “Final analysis” is a Marxist cue, an attempt to sound like he’s merely describing historical laws rather than issuing a strategic directive.

The subtext is recruitment and discipline. This is not solidarity as sympathy; it’s solidarity as command. If the revolution “hinges” on these struggles, then they become the standard against which every communist party, every liberation movement, even every wavering intellectual is judged. It also conveniently relocates revolutionary failure: if Europe stalls, that’s not the theory collapsing - it’s because the main arena has shifted.

Underneath the sweeping promise is a hard geopolitical pitch: China, not the Soviet Union, should be the patron and model for the world’s “majority,” because the future supposedly lives where empire once extracted its wealth.

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TopicFreedom
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Biao, Lin. (n.d.). In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-the-final-analysis-the-whole-cause-of-world-158881/

Chicago Style
Biao, Lin. "In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population." FixQuotes. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-the-final-analysis-the-whole-cause-of-world-158881/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-the-final-analysis-the-whole-cause-of-world-158881/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Lin Biao (December 5, 1907 - September 13, 1971) was a Politician from China.

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