Introduction

There have been many revolutions during the course of world history. Until what I would call “the age of revolution,” or the “short” twentieth century (1905–1991), those were the work of collective bodies (Puritans in England, Sons of Liberty in the British North American colonies, and Girondists and Jacobins in France). But in my designated age of revolution, paired revolutionaries is the key phenomenon. Each of the four most significant and influential revolutions during this period were led by a pair: Vladimir I. Lenin and Lev D. Trotsky (Russia); Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru (India); Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai (China); Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara (Cuba). Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the godfathers of three of those revolutions, participated in one revolution but in their lifetimes did not witness the successful revolutions they had worked so hard to inspire....