p The winning of political independence, liberation from political dependence upon imperialism, comprises the content of the first, initial stage of the national liberation revolution. This stage, which has been completed in some of the developing countries, witnesses the transfer of state power from the foreign imperialist bourgeoisie and the local feudal or clan and tribal ruling clique to the patriotic forces of the nation. The attainment of political independence and the formation of national states in Asia, Africa and Latin America are one of the crowning results of the disintegration of the imperialist colonial system.

But it is not the only objective of the national liberation revolution, for without economic independence it is impossible to consolidate the gains achieved by the revolution and put an end once and for all to dependence upon foreign monopolies. The ideologists of imperialism, Lenin wrote, usually talk “of national liberation .. . leaving out economic liberation. Yet in reality it is the latter that is the chief thing”.  [124•*