Cold War Revolutions

A condensed, point-by-point summary of the module, for reviewing right before a test or exam.

1. China's Road to Revolution: Warlords, Civil War, and the Rise of the CCP. Warlord chaos, Nationalist-Communist rivalry, and Japanese invasion set the stage for Mao's 1949 victory.
2. Civil War, Victory, and the Proclamation of the People's Republic (1945-1949). Renewed civil war after 1945 ended in communist victory and the founding of the PRC on 1 October 1949.
3. Building Maoist China: Land Reform, the Great Leap Forward, and Famine. Land reform and forced collectivization culminated in the Great Leap Forward and a catastrophic famine (1958-1962).
4. The Sino-Soviet Split, the Cultural Revolution, and China's Opening to the World. Rupture with Moscow, the Cultural Revolution, and the 1972 opening to the US reshaped China's Cold War path.
5. Batista's Cuba and the Making of a Revolutionary: Moncada to the Sierra Maestra. From Batista's 1952 coup to the 1956 Granma landing, Castro's movement built the base for guerrilla war.
6. Revolutionary Government, Agrarian Reform, and the Radicalization of Cuba. The new government's land reform and nationalizations rapidly escalated confrontation with the United States.
7. Cold War Flashpoint: Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, and Exporting Revolution. The Bay of Pigs failure, the 1962 Missile Crisis, and Che Guevara's death defined Cuba's Cold War role.
8. Legacies: The Special Period, Generational Transition, and Contested Histories. Cuba's post-Soviet Special Period and China's Deng-era rise left contrasting, contested revolutionary legacies.