Commonalities, Comparisons, Conclusions

Abstract

This chapter proposes that the origins of the Philippine, Indonesian, and Việtnamese revolutions were profoundly, but also diversely, cosmopolitan in nature. In this vein, the chapter indicates that the explanation for the differences observed between these revolutions lies not in innate, intrinsic, internal features of the three societies in which they unfolded, but rather in the varying ways they were integrated into the broader circuitries and currents of transcontinental and transoceanic commerce, into the world capitalist economy, and into diverse forms of cosmopolitan connectedness across the region and beyond. In suggesting explanations for the variegated forms and diverging trajectories of the Philippine, Indonesian, and Việtnamese revolutions, the chapter stresses the importance of both the distinctive legacies of cosmopolitan connections dating back to the Early Modern Era and the different constellations of social forces that crystallized during the Age of Empire with the deepening integration of the region into the world economy over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It recounts the anticlerical and elitist colorations of the Philippine Revolution, the centrality of Islam and communism to the Indonesian Revolusi, and the crucial contributions of both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party to the Việtnamese Revolution. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates a non-nationalist basis for sympathy and support for the egalitarian aspirations and emancipatory energies animating Southeast Asians' revolutionary struggles during the late nineteenth and early–mid-twentieth centuries.